U' 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

RIVERSIDE 

GIFT  OF 


Dr.  Gordon  Mat  kins 


C^nrlmtt  B,  Wtttknm 


Digitized  by  tine  Internet  Arciiive 

in  2007  witii  funding  from 

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THE  BRITISH  REVOLUTION 

AND 

THE  AMERICAN  DEMOCRACY 


THE  BRITISH  REVOLUTION 

AND 

THE  AMERICAN  DEMOCRACY 


AN  INTERPRETATION  OF 
BRITISH  LABOUR  PROGRAMMES 


BY 

NORMAN  ANGELL 


NEW  YORK 
B.  W.  HUEBSCH 

MCMXIX 


COPYRIGHT.   1919,  BY 
B,  W.  HUEBSOH 

PRINTED  IN  U.  S.  A. 

Published  March,  1919 
Second  printing,  April,  1919 
Tbdrd  printing,  June.  1919 


"  The  old  party  slogans  have  lost  their  significance  and 
will  mean  nothing  to  the  voter  of  the  future.  For  the  war 
is  certain  to  change  the  mind  of  Europe,  as  well  as  the  mind 
of  America.  .  .  . 

"  The  men  in  the  trenches,  who  have  been  freed  from  the 
economic  serfdom  to  which  some  of  them  have  been  accus- 
tomed, will,  it  is  likely,  return  to  their  homes  with  a  new 
view  and  a  new  impatience  of  all  mere  political  phrases,  and 
will  demand  real  thinking  and  sincere  action."  ^ 

"  For  a  long  time  this  country  has  lacked  one  of  the  insti- 
tutions which  freemen  have  always  and  everywhere  held 
fundamental.  For  a  long  time  there  has  been  no  sufficient 
opportunity  of  counsels  among  the  people.  ...  I  conceive  it 
to  be  one  of  the  needs  of  the  hour  to  restore  the  processes 
of  common  counsel.  .  .  . 

What  are  the  right  methods  of  politics?  Why,  the  right 
methods  are  those  of  public  discussion.  .  .  .  We  have  been 
told  that  it  is  unpatriotic  to  criticize  public  opinion.  Well, 
if  it  is,  there  is  a  deep  disgrace  resting  upon  the  origins  of 
this  nation.  This  nation  originated  in  the  sharpest  sort  of 
criticism  of  public  policy.  .  .  .  The  whole  purpose  of  democ- 
racy is  that  we  may  hold  counsel  with  one  another,  so  as  not 
to  depend  on  the  understanding  of  one  man,  but  to  depend 
upon  the  common  counsel  of  all."  ^ 

"  Every  man  should  have  the  privilege,  unmolested  and  un- 
criticized  to  utter  the  real  convictions  of  his  mind.  ...  I 
believe  that  the  weakness  of  the  American  character  is  that 
there  are  so  few  growlers  and  kickers  amongst  us.  .  .  .  Dif- 
ference of  opinion  is  a  sort  of  mandate  of  conscience.  .  .  . 
We  have  forgotten  the  very  principle  of  our  origin  if  we 
have  forgotten  how  to  object,  how  to  resist,  how  to  agitate, 
how  to  pull  down  and  build  up,  even  to  the  extent  of  revo- 
lutionary practices,  if  it  be  necessary  to  re-adjust  matters."  ' 

WooDRow  Wilson. 

*  Letter  to  Democratic  Banquet  at  Newark,  N.  J.,  March  20,  1918. 

2  The  Nev)  Freedom. 

■  "  Spurious  vs.  Real  Patriotism,"  School  Review,  Vol.  7,  p.  604. 


^ 


INTRODUCTION 
A  Plea  for  Facing  Facts 

To  know  what  a  book  is  not,  and  does  not  profess 
to  be,  is  often  as  indispensable  to  its  due  understand- 
ing as  to  know  its  positive  purpose. 

This  little  book  is  not  primarily  a  defence  or 
justification  of  the  social  programmes  it  discusses. 
It  is  an  attempt  to  explain  the  outstanding  moral 
forces  which  have  brought  those  programmes  into 
being,  and  with  which  the  world  will  have  to  reckon 
in  facing  its  problem  of  reconstruction.  The  author 
does  not  regard  those  forces  as  all  necessarily  benefi- 
cent: indeed,  he  is  at  pains  to  explain  why  he  re- 
gards some  of  them  as  particularly  dangerous  and 
menacing.  In  fact,  what  is  attempted  in  these  pages 
is  not  so  much  advocacy  as  explanation. 

Nor  is  any  attempt  made  to  analyse  exhaustively, 
in  economic  and  sociological  terms,  each  detail  of 
the  programmes.  For,  more  important  than  the 
precise  measures  proposed,  are  the  forces  —  social, 
economic,  moral  and  intellectual  —  that  have  pro- 
voked those  measures  and  stand  behind  them,  and 
may  extend  them  in  the  future.  We  have  had  ex- 
treme socialist,  or  socialistic  programmes  before. 
Socialism  has  indeed  been  the  creed  of  large  par- 

[vii] 


ties  In  European  states  for  three-quarters  of  a  cen- 
tury, but  we  have  not  been  very  greatly  disturbed. 
Certain  moral  and  psychological  factors  were  neces- 
sary to  give  the  essential  features  of  socialist  pro- 
grammes even  a  chance  of  trial,  still  less  of  success. 
An  attempt  is  here  made  to  show  to  what  extent  the 
war  has  brought  into  operation  social  and  moral 
factors  that  previously  were  absent,  has  set  up  con- 
ditions which  make  programmes  or  movements  here- 
tofore of  no  particular  importance,  now  of  the  very 
greatest  importance.  For  although  it  is  common 
enough  to  talk  of  the  great  spiritual  changes  and 
developments  which  the  war  must  bring,  one  may 
doubt  whether  it  is  as  common  to  enquire  very  care- 
fully into  the  nature  and  extent  of  those  changes,  and 
to  examine  the  fashion  in  which  they  are  expressing 
themselves  among  peoples  subject  more  completely, 
and  for  a  longer  period,  than  have  been  the  Ameri- 
can to  the  influence  of  war  legislation. 

By  a  combination  of  events  no  man  could  have  fore- 
seen, the  real  question  which  presents  itself  to  west- 
ern civilization  on  the  morrow  of  its  victory  over  the 
Central  Empires,  is  not  the  future  of  Prussian  mili- 
tarism or  even  of  political  democracy.  It  is  the 
future  of  the  institution  of  private  property,  and  the 
degree  and  kind  of  industrial  democracy  which  we 
intend  in  future  to  permit.  The  political,  historical 
and  geographical  questions  which  have  absorbed  so 
much  expert  attention  during  the  war,  are  likely  to 
be  subsidiary  to  much  wider  general  questions,  social, 
economic,  moral  in  their  nature. 

By  w'hat  process  does  a  war,  arising  out  of  conflicts 
[viii] 


of  nationality  and  the  political  ambitions  of  great 
military  states,  draw  to  its  close  with  those  questions 
pushed  relatively  into  the  background  while  others  so 
different  in  their  nature  are  rapidly  emerging?  The 
answer  to  that  question  is  to  be  found  in  an  examina- 
tion of  the  problem  which  the  Russian  Revolution  has 
presented  to  Western  civilization.  Soviet  Russia  is 
demanding  the  right,  not  alone  to  repudiate  its  for- 
eign indebtedness,  but  to  regard  those  who  do  not 
subscribe  to  its  communistic  principles  as  without 
title  to  participate  in  the  government  of  the  state. 
The  Dictatorship  of  the  Proletariat  is  employing 
against  the  educated  and  property-owning  classes  the 
same  ferocious  repressions  which  Czardom  has  used 
against  popular  movements  in  the  past. 

The  Bolshevists  today  are  refusing  to  admit  to  par- 
ticipation In  their  communistic  state  those  who  repu- 
diate Its  moral  foundations.  They  plead  that 
bourgeois  practice  justifies  them.  In  most  states  the 
man  who  will  not  give  his  life  to  the  purposes  of  the 
government  —  who  resists,  for  instance,  military 
conscription  for  the  political  ends  of  his  government 
—  is  shot.  Those  who  persist  in  encouraging  that 
kind  of  resistance  are  imprisoned.  Bolshevism  has 
taken  the  ground  that  those  who  refuse  to  surrender 
their  property,  and  encourage  others  in  that  refusal, 
should  be  deprived  at  least  of  their  citizenship. 

One  need  not  subscribe  to  Bolshevist  logic-chop- 
ping to  admit  the  real  difficulty  of  the  issues  involved, 
their  searching  and  far-reaching  implications. 

The  proletarian  autocracy  is  as  aggressive  in  its 
way  as  was  the  military  autocracy  of  Prussia.     Wc 

[«] 


may  see  It  spread  tomorrow  to  a  revolutionary  Ger- 
many also  adopting  a  confiscatory  socialism  and  in 
sympathetic  co-operation  with  Russia  and  certain  of 
the  lesser  Slavic  states. 

Shall  we  permit  this?  Can  this  be  regarded  as 
democracy?  American  public  opinion  —  if  the 
newspaper  attitude  towards  the  Bolsheviks  is  any  in- 
dication thereof  at  all  —  seems  disposed  to  answer 
those  questions  with  a  violent  negative.  But  the 
British  public  curiously  enough  is  not  so  certain  by 
any  means.  This  little  book  attempts  to  explain 
why. 

The  truth  is  that  the  difference  between  the  Amer- 
ican and  the  European  democracies  in  this  matter  is 
a  profound  one :  it  is  a  difference  as  to  the  meaning  of 
democracy.  In  America  that  word  means  political 
democracy  —  control  by  the  people  over  the  political 
acts  of  their  state.  To  the  peoples  of  Europe  —  or 
to  very  large  masses  of  them  —  the  word  is  already 
beginning  to  take  on  a  very  much  larger  meaning: 
the  right  of  the  people  to  control,  not  only  their  polit- 
ical, but  their  industrial  life  and  government;  the 
right  of  the  workers  themselves  to  determine  the  con- 
ditions of  their  daily  lives,  by  controlling  the  eco- 
nomic basis  of  the  community,  the  means  of  produc- 
tion, distribution,  exchange.  And  by  that  fact  the 
problem  of  democracy  has  become  intimately  related 
to  the  problems,  ethical  and  economic,  which  gather 
around  the  institution  of  private  property.  Our  pol- 
icy towards  communistic  Russia  will  define  our  atti- 
tude to  those  issues. 


w 


It  is  thus  that  towards  the  close  of  this  war  waged 
to  make  the  world  safe  for  democracy,  the  question 
which  most  paradoxically  overshadows  all  others,  is 
whether  our  victory  will  be  used  for  the  purpose  of 
forbidding  a  large  part  of  the  human  race  to  try  a 
great  social  experiment,  the  experiment  of  industrial, 
as  distinct  from  political  democracy,  based  upon  the 
abolition  of  private  property.  For  three  quarters 
of  a  century  schools  of  Socialistic  thought,  both 
French  and  German  (for  we  are  apt  to  forget  that 
the  Socialism  which  we  regard  as  "  made  in  Ger- 
many "  came  originally  from  France),  have  promul- 
gated the  doctrine  that  *'  property  is  theft."  Bol- 
shevist Russia  has  put  that  doctrine  into  practice,  and 
declared  that  none  participating  in  that  theft  can 
share  in  the  government  of  the  Russian  state.  At 
present  writing  we  are  showing  a  disposition  to  take 
the  line  that  this  exclusion  of  the  property-owning 
classes  from  any  share  in  the  government  must  be 
regarded  as  the  repudiation  of  democracy.  It  may 
well  be  so.  (The  present  writer  happens  to  think 
so.)  We  seem  (for  no  one  is  clear  at  present  just 
why  our  troops  are  fighting  the  Russians)  to  have 
taken  the  ground  that  we  shall  wage  war  as  relent- 
lessly upon  these  attempts  to  put  the  older  French 
Socialist  doctrines  into  practice,  as  upon  Kaiserism 
itself. 

Again  that  may  be  entirely  wise.  But  we  must 
admit  that  it  is  a  very  large  question:  as  deep  and 
fundamental  as  any  which  can  affect  the  future  of 
human  society.  It  is  indeed  a  decision  as  to  the 
kinds  of  human  society  which  will  be  permitted  on 

[xi] 


this  earth.  Two  questions  stand  out  with  reference 
to  it. 

Was  this  decision  —  as  great  and  vital  a  one  as 
any  that  has  been  put  before  men  since  the  Reforma- 
tion, or  the  winning  of  political  rights  —  arrived  at 
by  democratic  processes?  Did  the  peoples  come  to 
it  after  full  discussion,  with  a  full  knowledge  of  the 
facts  and  issues  involved?  Or  was  it  decided  for 
them,  without  their  knowledge,  by  their  govern- 
ments? Mr.  Wilson  has  declared  "that  this  is  a 
people's  war,  not  a  statesmen's.  Statesmen  must  fol- 
low the  clarified  common  thought  or  be  broken." 
"  Assemblies  and  associations  of  many  kinds,"  he 
continued,  "  made  up  of  plain  workaday  people  have 
demanded,  almost  every  time  they  came  together,  and 
are  still  demanding,  that  the  leaders  of  their  Govern- 
ments declare  to  them  plainly  what  it  is,  exactly  what 
it  is,  that  they  are  seeking  in  this  war,  and  what  they 
think  the  items  of  the  final  settlement  should  be." 

Has  the  necessary  democratic  condition  here  indi- 
cated been  adhered  to  in  the  matter  of  vast  decisions 
involved  in  the  Russian  policy? 

There  can  be  no  doubt  as  to  the  answer.  The 
Allied  democracies  awoke  one  morning  to  find  that 
they  were  at  war  with  Russia  and  that  their  armies 
were  invading  that  country.  The  decision  had  been 
made  and  carried  out  in  the  profoundest  secrecy  by  the 
governments,  without  reference  to  democratic  sanc- 
tion. President  Wilson  at  an  earlier  period  had  — 
so  we  were  given  semi-officially  to  understand  — 
strongly  opposed  the  policy  of  intervention,  but  was 
later  overruled  by  the  pressure  of  certain  European 

[xii] 


associates.  That  statement  has  been  freely  made  In 
the  English  press ;  but  no  one  really  knows  the  truth. 
We  are  not  permitted  to  know.  Three  persons  In 
America  have,  since  the  invasion  of  Russia,  been  sen- 
tenced to  twenty  years'  Imprisonment  for  urging 
resistance  to  American  participation  therein. 

The  Bolshevist  rulers  are  traitors  and  assassins. 
Possibly;  It  does  not  dispose  of  the  question  which 
Bolshevism  puts  to  our  generation,  any  more  than 
the  crimes  of  the  Terror  disposed  of  the  question 
which  the  French  revolution  raised  for  mankind. 
The  League  of  Nations,  formed  after  the  last  great 
world  war  a  century  ago  decided  that  political  experi- 
ments like  that  tried  by  France  should  be  forbidden 
in  the  name  of  humanity  and  public  order.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  political  republicanism  had  proven 
itself  at  the  first  French  experiment  a  cruel  and 
blood-thirsty  monster,  and  but  for  the  fact  that  the 
game  of  high  politics  happened  to  make  maritime 
England  an  opponent  of  the  Holy  Alliance,  the  ex- 
periment of  republicanism  in  Europe  and  in  the 
Spanish  colonies  of  this  continent  —  which  covered 
the  greater  part  of  it  —  would  not  have  been  per- 
mitted. For  about  a  century  those  experiments 
stood  the  test  of  order,  peace,  security,  freedom  and 
democracy  about  as  successfully  as  Russian  Bolshev- 
ism stood  it  during  one  year.  From  Mexico, 
through  the  Caribbean  to  Patagonia,  revolution  after 
revolution.  Interspersed  with  military  dictatorship, 
"  tyranny  tempered  by  assassination,"  was  until  yes- 
terday the  rule.  Only  now,  after  many  generations, 
is  order  and  democracy  emerging.     Certainly,  dur- 

[xiii] 


Ing  those  early  struggles  for  independence  against 
Spain  revolting  colonies  would  have  regarded  as 
comic  the  suggestion  that  parties  openly  defending 
the  old  royal  order  should  be  allowed  political 
participation  in  the  state.  Even  in  the  revolting 
American  colonies,  now  the  United  States,  the  loyal- 
ists were  driven  out,  expropriated  and  defranchised. 

These  considerations  are  no  more  an  attempt  to 
excuse,  still  less  justify,  the  abominable  crimes  of 
Bolshevism,  than  a  protest  against  lynching  and  its 
abominations  is  an  excuse  for  negro  rape.  Are  we 
lynching  Bolshevism  or  giving  it  a  fair  hearing? 

The  Bolshevists  themselves  are  proof  of  the  in- 
effectiveness of  repression.  A  great  part  of  the 
power  of  the  state  during  generations  in  Czarist 
Russia  was  devoted  to  stamping  out  revolutionary, 
socialist  and  communist  doctrines.  With  the  result 
that  Russia  is  finally  given  into  the  hands  of  its  ex- 
tremest  revolutionary  elements,  infected  with  a  virus 
that  could  only  have  developed  in  the  dark  of  cellars 
and  prisons.  Had  Bolshevism  been  openly  discussed 
in  Russia  during  a  generation;  had  the  Bolshevists 
been  obliged  to  submit  their  measures  to  the  discus- 
sions of  a  free  Duma,  had  a  literate  people  been  able 
to  see  in  detail  just  what  those  measures  meant,  Bol- 
shevism would  not  today  occupy  in  Russia  the  place 
that  it  undoubtedly  does.  And  if  a  similar  terror 
arises  in  Germany,  it  will  be  because  in  that  country 
also,  despite  —  perhaps  on  account  of  —  the  drilling 
and  discipline,  there  has  been  absent  any  really  free 
discussion,  or  training  of  the  people  In  the  making  of 
sane  decisions  in  political  matters. 

[xiv] 


Are  we  to  learn  nothing  from  this?  Are  we  our- 
selves to  adopt  the  very  methods  of  repression  and 
violence  which  have  produced  these  evils  in  Russia 
and  in  Germany?  That  repression  and  violence 
need  not  be  governmental.  The  self-imposed  cen- 
sorship which  the  unconscious  impulse  of  partisan- 
ship imposes  suffices  to  deprive  a  great  public  of  the 
capacity  for  balanced  decision. 

It  is  today  at  least  disturbing,  to  read  in  the  par- 
ticularly sober  and  moderate  New  York  Nation  ^  the 
following : 

For  several  weeks  the  American  public  was  kept  in  a  state 
of  agitation  by  reports  of  a  "  general  massacre  of  all  the 
upper  classes"  of  Russia  on  the  night  of  November  lO. 
"  It  will  be  another  Saint  Bartholomew's  night,"  said  the 
dispatches;  and  the  innocent  bourgeois  population  of  un- 
happy Russia  was  reported  to  be  "  in  a  panic  of  indescrib- 
able proportions."  The  hideous  affair  was  pre-described, 
commented  upon  editorially,  and,  save  for  the  practical  de- 
tails of  execution,  carried  through  by  the  press  before  the 
fateful  day  arrived.  On  November  7,  it  was  announced 
that  the  "  Russian  Ambassador  "  at  Washington  had  com- 
municated with  the  State  Department  "  proposing  that  the 
Bolsheviki  and  the  German  agents  be  held  personally  re- 
sponsible for  the  massacre  before  an  international  court." 
On  November  11,  the  day  after  the  "  massacre,"  an  obscure 
note  appeared  in  one  New  York  paper,  the  World  announc- 
ing in  its  headline  that  the  "  threat  of  massacre  seems  to  have 
been  a  fake."  Saint  Bartholomew's  night  apparently  passed 
without  incident,  and  the  only  action  of  the  Bolsheviki  which 
might  mark  the  occasion  was  a  general  order  "  giving  am- 
nesty to  all  arrested  hostages  and  persons  alleged  to  be  in- 
volved in  plots  against  the  Soviets  except  those  whose  deten- 

1  Nov.  24,  1918. 

[xv] 


tion  is  deemed  necessary  as  a  guarantee  for  the  security  of 
the  Bolsheviki  who  have  fallen  into  enemy  hands."  Not  one 
newspaper  copied  this  report.  Having  accomplished  the 
massacre  it  might  have  seemed  inconsistent  to  bring  the 
dead  to  life,  as  well  as  weakening  to  the  lavishly-documented 
case  against  the  Bolsheviki. 

Our  neighbour  the  New  Republic  asks  who  is  respon- 
sible for  the  lies  about  Russia  which  are  being  so  system- 
atically disseminated  in  this  country.  We  should  like  to 
amplify  the  question  and  ask  who  is  responsible  for  all  the 
particular  lies  about  particular  countries  which  appear  in 
our  press  with  such  astonishing  frequency.  It  would  seem 
as  if  a  master  hand  managed  the  lighting  effects  of  the 
vast  international  stage.  At  a  moment's  notice  any  country 
in  any  part  of  the  world,  from  Greenland  to  Patagonia,  may 
appear  upon  our  front  pages  as  a  paragon  of  virtue  or  a 
demon  of  wickedness. 

When  data  are  presented  in  that  way  what  are  the 
public  judgments  based  upon  them  worth? 

Consider  the  foregoing  in  the  light  of  an  appeal, 
addressed  to  Americans  not  long  since  by  a  cultivated 
Englishman,  who  for  years  has  known  Russia,  and 
who  has  sympathetically  tried  to  understand  the 
Russian  people.  Arthur  Ransome,  in  his  "  Open 
Letter  to  America "  on  the  Russian  Revolution, 
writes  as  follows  : 

It  may  be,  that,  knowing  so  little  about  America,  I  let  my- 
self think  too  well  of  it.  Perhaps  there  too  men  go  about 
repeating  easy  lies,  poisoning  the  wells  of  truth  from  simple 
lack  of  attention  to  the  hygiene  of  the  mind.  I  do  not  know. 
I  only  know  that,  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  Russian 
Revolution,  England  seems  to  be  a  vast  nightmare  of  blind 
folly,  separated  from  the  continent,  indeed  from  the  world, 

[xvi] 


by  the  sea,  and  beyond  that  by  the  trenches,  and  deprived, 
by  some  fairy  godmother  who  was  not  invited  to  her  chris- 
tening, of  the  imagination  to  realize  what  is  happening  be- 
yond. Shouting  in  daily  telegrams  across  the  wires  from 
Russia  I  feel  I  am  shouting  at  a  drunken  man  asleep  in  the 
road  in  front  of  a  steam  roller.  And  then  the  newspapers 
of  six  weeks  ago  arrive,  and  I  seem  to  see  that  drunk,  sleep- 
ing fool  make  a  motion  as  if  to  brush  a  fly  from  his  nose,  and 
take  no  further  notice  of  the  monstrous  thing  bearing  steadily 
towards  him.  I  love  the  real  England,  but  I  hate,  more  than 
I  hate  anything  on  earth  (except  cowardice  in  looking  at 
the  truth)  the  intellectual  sloth,  the  gross  mental  indolence 
that  prevents  the  English  from  making  an  effort  of  imagina- 
tion and  realizing  how  shameful  will  be  their  position  in  his- 
tory when  the  story  of  this  last  year  in  the  biography  of 
demotracy  comes  to  be  written.  How  shameful,  and  how 
foolish  .  .  .  for  they  will  one  day  be  forced  to  realize  how 
appalling  are  the  mistakes  they  committed,  even  from  the 
mere  bestial  standpoint  of  self-interest  and  expediency. 
Shameful,  foolish  and  tragic  beyond  tears  .  .  .  for  the  toll 
will  be  paid  in  English  blood.  English  lads  will  die  and 
English  lads  have  died,  not  one  or  two,  but  hundreds  of 
thousands,  because  their  elders  listen  to  men  who  think  little 
things,  and  tell  them  little  things,  which  are  so  terribly  easy 
to  repeat.  At  least  half  our  worst  mistakes  have  been  due 
to  the  underestimation  of  some  person  or  force  outside  Eng- 
land, and  disturbing  to  little  men  who  will  not  realize  that 
chaos  has  come  again  and  that  giants  are  waking  in  the 
world.  They  look  across  Europe  and  see  huge  things,  mons- 
trous figures,  and,  to  save  themselves,  and  from  respect  for 
other  little  lazy  minds,  they  leap  for  the  easiest  tawdry  ex- 
planation, and  say,  "  Ah  yes,  bogies  made  in  Germany  with 
candles  inside  turnip  heads ! "  And  having  found  their 
miserable  little  atheistical  explanation  they  din  it  into  every- 
body, so  that  other  people  shall  make  the  same  mistakes,  and 
they  have  company  in  folly,  and  so  be  excused.  And  in  the 
end  it  becomes  difficult  for  even  honestminded,  sturdy  folk 
in  England  to  look  those  bogies  squarely  in  their  turnip  faces 

(^xvii] 


and  to  see  that  they  are  not  bogies  at  all,  but  the  real  article, 
giants,  whose  movements  in  the  mist  are  of  greater  import 
for  the  future  of  the  world  than  anything  else  that  is  hap- 
pening in  our  day.^ 

The  forces  with  which  we  are  dealing  cannot  be 
destroyed.  They  can  be  rendered  ferocious  by  re- 
pression, turned  to  the  service  of  evil;  but  in  essence 
they  remain.  The  impulses  behind  Communism  and 
Socialism,  like  those  behind  freedom  and  the  polit- 
ical equality  of  men,  are  perpetually  recurrent  in 
man's  attempt  to  organize  his  society.  It  serves  no 
purpose  to  dismiss  these  socialist  and  communistic 
projects  as  mere  chimera  due  to  madness.  Those 
most  apt  to  take  that  view,  the  staunchest  Tory  de- 
fenders of  the  old  order,  themselves  unintentionally 
adopt  the  most  far-reaching  socialistic  principles  in 
the  measures  which  they  take  for  the  prosecution  of 
war.  It  is  the  war  itself  which  has  pushed  forward 
communistic  policies  further  than  half  a  century  of 
mere  socialistic  propaganda  could  have  done.  It  is 
the  war  which,  in  giving  such  supreme  power  to  the 
state,  has  raised  once  more  all  the  issues  involved  in 
this  discussion.  Those  issues  are  not  new.  They 
are  part  of  the  problem  of  the  relation  of  the  individ- 
ual to  society,  of  the  conflict  between  individual  rights 
and  social  obligation  which  is  older  than  man  himself, 
since  the  instinct  we  inherit  from  the  herd  and  the 
flock  enters  into  it. 

These  issues  involve  differences  as  profound  as 
those  which  marked  phases  of  human  development 

1  From   the   pamphlet,   On   Behalf   of  Russia,  published  by   The 
Nenu  Republic. 

[xviii] 


like  the  wars  of  religion ;  difficulties  as  great  as  those 
which  had  to  be  overcome  before  we  could  achieve 
the  establishment  of  religious  toleration.  Will  de- 
mocracy, facing  a  new  form  of  the  old  questions,  re- 
peat the  errors  which  led  us  so  far  astray  in  the 
prof oundest  thing  that  touches  us  —  religion  ?  Men 
mistook  the  passion  of  partisanship  for  the  passion 
of  righteousness.  Not  only  did  they  refuse  to  hear 
two  sides  in  rehgious  matters,  but  they  made  it  a 
crime  so  to  do.  They  demanded  that  the  state  com- 
pel unquestioning  acceptance  of  their  rehgious  creed. 
Shall  we  now  insist  that  it  is  a  crime  to  differ  from 
the  political  creed  of  the  state?  Can  democracy 
achieve  wisdom,  maintain  self-discipline  sufficient  to 
be  its  own  master  and  its  own  guide,  if  the  old  pas- 
sions of  religious  differences  are  transferred  to  the 
political  field? 

Any  writer  who  has  attempted  to  deal  with  the 
issues  discussed  in  this  book  knows  the  need  of 
asking  those  questions.  The  first  impulse  is  to  re- 
fuse consideration  for  the  revolutionary  point  of 
view.  That  point  of  view  may  be  wrong,  but  behind 
it  are  forces  which,  though  they  may  be  rationally 
directed,  cannot  be  suppressed.  To  throw  some 
light  on  the  nature  of  those  forces  is  the  object  of 
these  pages. 


[xix] 


CONTENTS 

Introduction:    A  Plea  for  Facing  the  Facts    .     vii 

PART  I 
THE  CONCERN  OF  AMERICA 

CHAPTER  I 
The  Relation  to  the  Peace  Settlement  ...       3 

The  scant  interest  shown  by  the  American  people  as  a 
whole  in  the  recent  social  movements  of  Europe.  Yet 
the  force  of  those  movements  will  deeply  influence  the 
character  of  the  peace  settlement  and  the  accomplishment 
•f  those  political  ends  for  which  America  entered  the  war. 
The  fashion  in  which  the  social  revolution  is  pushing  the 
political  and  national  issues  into  the  background,  and  how 
the  issue  of  a  social  system  based  on  private  property 
versus  one  based  on  communism  is  determining  the  align- 
ment of  forces  in  Europe.  For  what  kind  of  democracy 
will  the  world  be  made  safe? 

CHAPTER  II 
The  Arrival  of  the  Problem  in  America  ...     36 

The  growth  of  radically  socializing  policies  throughout 
the  world  is  not  due  to  socialist  propaganda,  or  the  in- 
fluence of  socialists,  but  to  the  war  measures  of  govern- 
ments often  anti-socialist  in  opinion  and  intention.  Thuf 
the  introduction  of  extremely  radical  policies  into  America 
is  not  the  work  of  the  Socialist  Party,  or  the  I.  W.  W., 
but  results  from  the  actual  measures  of  the  government 
for  war  purposes.  These  revolutionary  measures,  which 
could  never  have  been  introduced  by  Socialist  influence, 
have  actually  been  put  into  effect,  and  the  question  which 
will  shortly  present  itself  to  the  American  public  is 
"Which  of  these  measures  shall  be  undone?"  and  out 
of  that  question  may  arise,  with  the  changes  wrought  by 
war  conditions,  a  re-alignment  of  political  forces,  as  in 
England.    The  British  problems  are   already  here. 


PART  II 

BRITISH  LABOUR  PROGRAMMES  AND 
THE  FORCES  BEHIND  THEM 

CHAPTER  I 
What  Is  the  British  Labour  Party?   ....     53 

Historical  outline  of  the  Party;  its  constituent  elements. 
Its  position  in  the  ebb  and  flow  of  present  party  reorgan- 
ization in  England.  The  general  question  of  political 
action  by  trade-union  forces  in  England.  The  gradual 
disappearance  of  "  abtolute  "  socialism  in  Europe,  and  the 
substitution  for  cast  iron  dogmas  a  general  socializing 
tendency  in  radical  political  programmes.  Socialism  and 
Democracy;  "Socialism  versus  the  State."  French  syn- 
dicalism, British  guild  socialism,  Bolshevism,  and  im- 
possibilism  in  Labour  politics.  The  English  Parliamen- 
tary system  and  comparison  with  the  American  Constitu- 
tion. 

:hapter  II 

The  Proposed  Measures 92 

The  outstanding  measures  proposed  by  the  sub-commit- 
tee of  the  British  Labour  Party  in  their  report  on  Recon- 
struction. The  means  to  the  end.  Features  iu  a  pro- 
gramme of  the  L»Dshury-H erald  group. 

CHAPTER  III 
Is  It  Possible? 105 

Most  of  the  measures  proposed  are  actually  now  in  op- 
eration for  the  purposes  of  the  war,  and  hLve  given  mate- 
rial results  far  in  excess  of  anything  which  would  have 
been  thought  possible  in  August,  1914.  The  feasibility  of 
Collectivism,  tested  in  material  ^erms,  has  been  demon- 
strated. What  is  now  demanded  is  that  that  which  can 
be  done  for  purposes  of  war  shall  also  be  done  for  the 
purposes  of  peace.  The  political  training  and  scientific 
spirit  of  the  new  Labour  Party. 

CHAPTER  IV 

The  Ideal  of  a  Real  Democracy  and  "A  New 
Social  Order  " 127 

What  is  the  feeling  behind  the  declaration  that  the  old 
order  is  done  with,  and  that  there  will  be  no  attempts  to 


patch  it  up,  and  that  an  entirely  "  New  Social  Order " 
must  replace  it?  Mainly  that  mere  improvement  of  the 
material  condition  of  the  workers,  leaving  unchanged  their 
moral  status  as  a  servile  class,  will  not  suffice.  The  re- 
assertion  of  egalitarian  ideas.  The  imponderabilia  in  the 
motive  forces  of  Labour  Politics.  Why  are  some  Social- 
ists lukewarm  towards  or  hostile  to  the  war?  The  emer- 
gence of  reactionary  forces  in  war  time.  State  Socialism 
not  synonymous  with  Freedom:  nor  with  Peace.  Will  a 
more  socialized  order  necessarily  make  for  a  warless 
world?    The  relation  of  Socialiiim  to  internationalism^ 

CHAPTER  V 

Military  Conscription  and  the  Institution  of 

Private  Property 159 

The  fashion  in  which  the  needs  of  war  have  prompted 
a  reassertion  of  the  absolute  rights  of  the  state  over  the 
person  —  his  life  and  mind  —  is  modifying  age-long  con- 
ceptions of  private  property.  Confiscation,  conscription 
of  wealth  and  the  Eighth  Commandment.  Not  repudia- 
tion, but  a  progressive  income  tax.  The  virtual  bank- 
ruptcy of  some  of  the  belligerent  states  and  its  effect  on  fu- 
ture legislation.     Necessitas.  .  .  . 

CHAPTER  VI 
The  Spirit  of  Adventure  in  Social  Change  .     .178 

The  end  of  the  old  fatalism  which  implies  that  we  must 
"  take  the  world  as  we  find  it,"  and  that  we  cannot  re- 
make it  Some  of  the  results  that  we  may  expect  from 
the  cheapening  of  life,  the  contempt  of  danger,  the  re-cast- 
ing of  moral  standards,  and  the  spirit  of  revolution  which 
the  war  has  produced.  The  "  strenuous  life  "  in  times  of 
peace,  and  its  social  and  political  implications. 

PART  III 
THE  DANGERS 

CHAPTER  I 
A  Society  of  Free  Men  or  the  Servile  State?     .    189 

The  greater  the  degree  of  socialization,  the  more  de- 
pendent does  the  individual  become  upon  the  community. 
Unless  this  increased  power  of  the  community  is  used  with 


restraint  and  wisdom,  the  new  order  may  be  wrecked  by 
the  crushing  of  the  individual  personality  on  which  in  the 
long  run  society  depends.  A  social  order  which  comes  into 
being  as  the  result  of  war  measures  is  likely  to  be  strongly 
marked  by  coercive  tendencies.  If  it  is  not  to  be  in  truth 
the  Servile  State,  the  indulgence  of  present  tendencies 
must  be  checked  by  a  clear  recognition  of  their  danger. 
Do  we  love  oppression  and  coercion  for  their  own  sake? 
What  present  methods  might  mean,  if  employed  by  a 
Labour  government. 

CHAPTER  II 
The  Herd  and  Its  Hatred  of  Freedom  ....  236 

The  deep-seated  hatred  of  those  who  have  the  insuffer- 
able impudence  to  disagree  with  us  is  one  of  the  strong- 
est and  most  constant  motives  in  history,  often  ruthlessly 
over-riding  economic  and  other  considerations,  yet  sel- 
dom taken  into  account.  The  motive  has  strong  biological 
justification,  but  like  other  instincts  of  self-preservation 
may  destroy  us  if  yielded  to  indiscriminately  without  fore- 
sight of  consequences.  How  the  social  machinery  of  mod- 
ern society  tends  to  develop  this  herd  feeling.  Two  essays 
for  war  time:  "The  Problem  of  Northcliffe  ";  and  "  De 
Haeretico  Comburiendo,  or  '  Now  is  not  the  time.* " 

CHAPTER  III 
Why  Freedom  Matters 263 

Our  age  long  failures  to  grasp  the  real  justification  of 
freedom:  Society's  need.  The  self-same  debate  in  Ath- 
ens two  thousand  five  hundred  years  ago.  The  oppres- 
sions from  which  the  mass  have  suffered  have  always 
been  imposed  by  themselves.  The  idea  that  a  tiny  mi- 
nority, by  means  of  physical  force,  can  impose  tyranny 
upon  the  mass,  is  obviously  an  illusion.  Tha.  tyranny 
must  be  imposed  by  capturing  the  mind  of  the  mass.  The 
quality  of  any  Society  depends  upon  the  ideas  of  the  indi- 
viduals who  compose  it,  and  those  ideas  upon  Freedom 
and  independence  of  judgment.  The  Political  Heretic  as 
the  Saviour  of  Society. 

APPENDICES 

Text  of  the  Report  of  the  British  Labour  Party 

ON  Reconstruction 297 

Text  of  "  Lansbury-Herald  "  Proposal     .     .     .315 


PART  I 
THE  CONCERN  OF  AMERICA 


THE  BRITISH  REVOLUTION 

AND 

THE  AMERICAN  DEMOCRACY 

CHAPTER  I 

THE   RELATION   TO   THE    PEACE    SETTLEMENT 

The  scant  interest  shown  by  the  American  people  as  a  whole  in 
the  recent  social  movements  of  Europe.  Yet  the  force  of  those  move- 
ments will  deeply  influence  the  character  of  the  peace  settlement 
and  the  accomplishment  of  those  political  ends  for  which  America 
entered  the  war.  The  fashion  in  which  the  social  revolution  is 
pushing  the  political  and  national  issues  into  the  Background,  and 
how  the  issue  of  a  social  system  based  on  private  property  versus 
one  based  on  communism  is  determining  the  alignment  of  forces  in 
Europe.     For  what  kind  of  democracy  will  the  world  be  made  safe? 

How  much  space  have  the  great  American  dally 
papers  devoted  to  the  Report  on  Reconstruction 
adopted  by  the  British  Labour  Party?  Has  even  one 
at  this  moment  of  writing,  six  months  after  Its  publi- 
cation, reproduced  it  in  full,  or  analyzed  it  with  any 
care?  Has  it  been  noticed  at  all  in  the  American 
Press  outside  of  special  radical  weekly  publications? 
However  that  may  be,  it  is  pretty  certain  that  not 
one  hundredth  part  of  the  space  has  been  devoted 
to  it  that  has  been  devoted  to  such  world  shaking 
questions  as  the  retention  of  Dr.  Muck  as  the  con- 
ductor of  the  Boston  Symphony  Orchestra,  or  Mr. 

[3] 


Creel's  remarks  concerning  certain  Congressmen. 
Yet  in  the  minds  of  very  many  who  have  followed 
most  closely  the  social  and  political  developments  of 
recent  years  in  Europe,  this  document  may  very  well 
prove  to  be  what  it  professes  to  be,  the  charter  of  an 
entirely  new  social  order;  the  proclamation  of  a 
revolution.  By  "  revolution  "  be  it  noted,  is  not 
meant  machine  guns  at  street  corners,  nor  anything 
resembling  a  military  movement  against  the  govern- 
ment.^ The  word  is  used  in  the  sense  in  which  we 
speak  of  the  industrial  revolution  —  the  coming  of 
"  the  New  Social  Order  "  as  the  Labour  Party  Com- 
mittee themselves  term  it.  It  is  not  likely  to  come 
by  violence,  but  it  will  be  none  the  less  revolutionary 
—  a  "  turn  over  " —  for  all  that.     For  it  will  affect 

1  As  long  ago,  however,  as  the  summer  of  1917  the  London 
Times,  through  the  articles  of  its  "  special  commissioner,"  begaa 
to  speak  of  "the  ferment  of  Revolution."  Its  commissioner  (Sep- 
tember 25)   wrote: 

"There  exists  at  the  present  moment  a  revolutionary  movement 
in  this  country  which  has  gathered  considerable  momentum;  it  has 
long  passed  the  stage  of  mere  talk,  and  has  realized  itself  in 
formidable  action.  There  has  been  no  attack  on  the  Throne,  no 
rioting  in  the  streets,  no  destruction  of  visible  property;  but  changes 
have  been  already  brought  about  which  are  thwarting  the  efforts 
of  Government  to  conduct  the  war  with  efficiency,  and  if  these 
changes  go  further  they  will  bring  the  country  into  confusion." 

The  paper  comments  editorially: 

"  The  facts  set  out  in  these  articles  are  no  news  to  the  Govern- 
ment or  to  the  official  heads  of  trade  unionism,  but  their  cue  has 
always  been  to  turn  a  blind  eye,  and,  when  that  is  impossible,  to 
minimize  the  extent  of  the  mischief  and  soothe  the  public  with 
'  optimistic '  assurances,  which  the  public  are  always  ready  to 
swallow.  That  policy  is  natural,  and  up  to  a  point  defensible; 
but  when  the  result  is  a  continued  and  rapid  increase  of  the  evil 
on  lines  that  promise  no  decline  but  certain  development  into  a 
national  danger,  then  it  is  time  to  adopt  a  different  policy. 

"The  central  fact  is  that  behind  the  meaningless  and  stupid  term 
'labour  unrest'  lies  a  conscious  revolutionary  movement  which 
aims  at  the  complete  overthrow  of  the  existing  economic  and  social 
order,  not  in  some  uncertain  future,  but  here  and  now." 

[4] 


our  most  fundamental  conceptions,  touching  such 
things  as  the  institution  of  private  property,  the  real 
nature  of  democracy,  the  rights  of  the  individual  and 
the  power  of  the  community, —  the  character  of  hu- 
man society  in  fact. 

"  The  war  of  Nations,"  *  writes  Frederic  Har- 
rison, "  is  being  entangled  with,  is  merging  into,  the 
war  of  Class :  about  sovereignty,  ranks,  upper  and 
lower  Orders ;  but  essentially,  between  those  who  hold 
Capital  and  those  who  Work  with  their  hands.  Na- 
tional wars,  as  we  see,  unite  men  in  nations:  class 
wars  suppress  the  spirit  of  nationality,  for  they  her- 
ald what  Socialists  promise  as  the  grander  form  of 
Patriotism,  the  brotherhood  of  labourers.  At  the 
opening  of  the  great  European  War  Democracy  was 
appealed  to,  and  nobly  it  answered  the  call  in  the 
name  of  the  Nation.  But  now,  in  this  fourth  year 
of  war,  we  see  all  over  Europe  how  democratic  pa- 
triotism is  expanding  into  the  new  Industrial  Order 
which  dreamers  for  two  generations  have  imagined 
as  the  Social  Revolution." 

That  Social  Revolution  will  determine  the  polit- 
ical issues.  Yet  its  nature  and  underlying  forces  are 
left  all  but  undiscussed  and  unrepresented  in  the 
American  press. 

There  are  several  causes  contributing  to  that 
neglect.  We  get  in  the  American  press  long  quota- 
tions every  day  from  the  daily  papers  of  Britain  as 
representing  "  British  "  opinion.  But  for  reasons 
of  an  economic  order  the  British  Labour  Party,  and 
the  groups  composing  it,   although  they  represent 

^Fortnightly  Reviev!,  Jan.,  1918. 

[5] 


perhaps  the  majority  of  the  British  population,  do 
not  possess  a  single  daily  paper.  It  thus  happens 
that  day  after  day  during  serious  crises,  we  get 
voluminous  expressions  of  "  British  opinion  "  from 
which  possibly  the  largest  section  of  all  is  excluded. 

Let  us  note  the  relation  of  this  Social  Revolution 
of  which  Mr.  Harrison  speaks,  to  the  accomplish- 
ment of  the  specific  objects  for  which  America  en- 
tered this  war. 

What  are  those  objects? 

The  President  has  repeatedly,  both  explicitly  and 
implicitly,  emphasized  this  fact:  The  establishment 
of  a  new  international  order  is  not  for  America,  as  it 
is  for  the  other  belligerents,  something  over  and 
above  special  national  objects.  It  Is  in  itself  the  ma- 
jor American  purpose,  since  it  is  the  condition  sine 
qua  non  of  the  prevention  of  the  particular  abuses 
which  caused  her  to  enter  the  war;  the  condition  of 
achieving  any  result  whatsoever.  Even  though  no 
League  of  Nations  were  established,  France  would 
secure  the  righting  of  the  wrong  of  1872;  Italy  would 
redeem  her  unredeemed  fatherland,  and  so  down  the 
whole  list  of  the  European  belligerents.  But  what 
would  America  get?  Her  belligerency  on  behalf  of 
the  freedom  of  future  generations  of  Americans,  the 
preservation  of  democracy  In  the  world,  is  related  in 
a  more  Intimate  way  than  in  the  case  of  her  European 
associates  to  the  ending  of  an  international  order 
based  upon  competitive  militarism. 

A  new  international  order  as  the  outcome  of  the 
war  might  take  one  of  three  possible  forms : 

(i)   A  close  alliance  of  the  four  chief  allied 

r6] 


governments:  America,  Britain,  France  and 
Italy,  imposing  a  general  settlement  arranged 
privately  among  themselves,  that  settlement 
covering  such  questions  as  the  kind  of  govern- 
ment which  shall  be  recognized  (that  Is,  permit- 
ted) not  only  in  Germany  but  In  Russia,  Poland, 
Ukrainia,  Roumania,  Bohemia,  Serbia,  etc. 
Such  an  Alliance  would  be  an  organ  of  coercion 
for  securing  the  observance  of  the  settlement, 
territorial  and  other,  which  it  might  make, 
using  perhaps  its  military  forces  in  such  cases  as 
Russia,  but  more  frequently  Its  power  through 
control  of  food,  shipping  and  raw  material. 

(2)  A  Socialist  International  definitely 
aligned  against  the  League  of  Governments  just 
described.  The  International  would  stand  for 
the  Soviets,  for  complete  industrial  democracy 
in  Russia  or  Germany,  or  anywhere  else  that 
such  experiments  might  be  tried. 

(3)  A  Liberal  League  of  Nations  of  the 
Wilson  type,  embracing  not  only  the  four  chief 
Allied  belligerents  but  the  lesser  states,  the 
enemy  states,  and  the  neutrals  as  well.  Its 
main  activities  would  be,  not  repressive  and  co- 
ercive, aimed  at  compelling  observance  of  an 
imposed  status  quo,  but  legislative.  It  would 
aim  not  so  much  at  enforcing  peace  through 
the  power  of  a  few  great  governments,  as  at 
making  constitutional  provision  for  changes  in 
the  conditions  which  lead  to  war,  creating  for 
that  purpose  democratic  machinery  in  the  shape 
of  an  international  legislature  as  truly  reprc- 

[7] 


sentative     as    possible    of    the    peoples.     It 
would  provide  for  change  and  development  by 
constitutional  means,   removing  the   need   for 
war  as  an  instrument  of  change  or  growth.     It 
would  thus  provide  in  the  international  field 
what  every  nation  provides  as  a  matter  of  course 
within  its  own  borders.     Its  first  task  would  be 
not  so  much  that  of  policemen  compelling  ob- 
servance of  ancient  international  laws,  as  of 
democratic  law-makers  devising  better  rules. 
The  questions  involved  in  these  political  alterna- 
tives cannot  be  answered  without  raising  the  funda- 
mental issue  of  the  Social  Revolution.     Let  us  note 
how  the  development  of  governmental  policy  with 
reference  to  a  certain  political  decision  is  now  tend- 
ing to  raise  that  issue. 

After  fairly  definite  declarations  to  the  effect  that 
there  should  be  no  military  intervention  in  Russia  for 
the  purpose  of  interfering  with  the  internal  affairs  of 
that  country,  we  have  intervened.  The  first  justifica- 
tion was  that  the  country  was  falling  under  the  mili- 
tary domination  of  Germany.  Russia's  forces  were 
aiding  our  enemy  in  war.  But  that  enemy  is  now  dis- 
armed. We  still  intervene.  On  what  ground?  It 
has  not  so  far  been  stated.  But  there  are  several 
perfectly  arguable  grounds.  It  is  undeniable  that 
the  Russian  Revolutionary  government  has  robbed 
milHons  of  honest  Frenchmen  of  their  savings. 
That  money  was  not  lent  to  Czardom  for  the  pur- 
poses of  oppression.  With  it,  Russia  has  built  rail- 
roads and  docks  —  and  steals  them.  More,  the  eco- 
nomic penetration  of  Russia  by  individual  Germans 

[8] 


may  place  It  dangerously  under  German  influence. 
The  possible  creation  of  a  new  menace  to  western 
democracy  may  demand  that  that  process  of  penetra- 
tion shall  stop.  Certain  groups  —  monarchist, 
Cadet  —  which  recently  were  turning  to  Germany 
for  aid,  are  now  believed  to  favour  our  intervention. 
It  will,  therefore,  be  far  better  for  the  future  of  de- 
mocracy —  and  Russian  bonds  —  that  the  early 
steps  of  Russians  in  self-government  and  self-deter- 
mination should  be  guided  by  their  elder  brothers; 
the  practical  means  to  that  end  being  the  partition 
of  the  country  between  the  great  Allied  powers  for  a 
prolonged  military  occupation.  Japan,  who  has 
been  to  the  forefront  In  the  policy  of  Intervention, 
will  of  course  shoulder  her  part  of  the  White  Man's 
Burden  in  its  latest  form,  and  In  fitting  the  Slav  race 
for  democracy  upon  Western  models. 

That  decision.  If  carried  out,  will  of  course  neces- 
sarily mean  that  the  future  League  of  Nations  will 
be  of  the  Holy  Alliance  type.  Just  as  the  Congress 
of  Peace  which  settled  the  last  world  war  ended  In  a 
League  of  Nations  (the  phrase  was  current,  by  the 
way,  at  the  Congress  of  Vienna)  which  decided  to 
forbid  experiments  in  political  democracy  as  the 
enemy  of  public  order  (which  In  a  sense  they  cer- 
tainly were)  so  the  new  Peace  Congress  may  forbid 
experiments  in  new  forms  of  democracy,  based,  as  we 
regard  it,  upon  theft,  and  threatening  the  peace  and 
security  of  that  form  of  political  organization  which 
we  have  developed  during  the  nineteenth  century. 
The  Holy  Alliance  which  followed  the  Congress  of 
Vienna  was  initiated  by  a  sincere,  religious  enthusi- 

[9] 


ast,  for  the  declared  purpose  of  maintaining  world 
peace,  which  was  presumed  (rightly)  to  be  incom- 
patible with  political  democracy  as  we  now  know  it. 
The  Peace  of  Vienna  was  broken,  less  by  the  dynasts 
who  were  honestly  in  favour  of  a  peace  which  should 
crystallize  the  order  in  which  they  were  the  ruling 
element,  than  by  revolting  American  colonies,  pop- 
ular revolutions,  and  assertions  of  nationality. 

But  we  know  that  that  interpretation  of  "  making 
the  world  safe  for  democracy  "  will  not  be  accepted 
by  great  masses  of  the  folk  in  Western  Europe. 

In  the  pages  that  follow  some  attempt  is  made  to 
show  why  so  many  among  the  European  peoples  have 
ceased  to  attach  much  value  to  mere  political  democ- 
racy —  control  of  their  political  government  and 
destiny  —  and,  as  already  noted,  are  insisting  that 
democracy  means  the  right  to  control  their  in- 
dustrial life  and  government,  to  determine  their 
workaday  conditions  by  control  of  the  economic  basis 
of  the  community's  life  —  the  means  of  production, 
distribution,  exchange.  This  involves  the  right  of 
the  state  to  take  private  property  and  capital  for 
social  ends,  as  absolutely  as  it  now,  for  instance, 
takes  the  life  of  the  worker  for  its  military  purposes. 
Soviet  Russia,  in  the  application  of  this  principle  to 
practice,  has  asserted  the  right  to  exclude  from  its 
government  all  those  who  do  not  subscribe  to  its  com- 
munistic principles.  Just  as  England  refuses  to  ac- 
cord the  vote  to  those  who  will  not  fight  for  the  state 
(conscientious  objectors  to  the  conscription  of  life), 
so  Russia  refuses  to  give  the  vote  to  those  who  resist 
the  conscription  of  their  wealth. 

[lO] 


That  Interpretation  of  democracy  we  are  for  the 
time  being  resisting,  and  this  issue  has  on  both  sides 
overridden  the  original  causes  of  conflict.  Note  to 
what  degree.  The  Nationalist  parties  in  Russia, 
those  whose  sentiment  of  Slav  national  solidarity 
were  such  as  to  throw  the  protection  of  Russia  over 
small  Slav  states  endangered  by  the  aggression  of 
Germany,  are  the  very  parties  who,  in  the  border 
states,  were  the  first  to  call  in  German  aid  to  repel 
rival  Russian  parties  who  would  upset  the  existing 
economic  order.  As  between  the  Russian  Bolshevik 
and  the  enemy  German  bourgeois,  they  chose  the 
German  bourgeois.  The  "  Whites  "  of  Ukrainia, 
like  those  of  Finland,  very  readily  allied  themselves 
with  Germans  to  fight  Russians.  The  son  of  Leo 
Tolstoy  begins  an  article  in  an  American  paper  with 
these  words:  "I  shall  be  glad  for  Russia  when 
the  Germans  take  Petrograd.  It  w'ill  finish  the 
Bolsheviki."  Professor  Miliukoff  himself  went  to 
Kieff  to  come  to  an  alliance  with  the  Germans.  The 
parties  whom  we  are  now  supporting  in  Ukraine  and 
in  Finland  are  those  which  have  been  notable  for 
their  readiness  to  co-operate  with  the  Germans  in 
resistance  to  the  Russian  Bolsheviks.  But  the  most 
striking  illustration  of  all  is  of  course  the  clause  in 
the  armistice  conditions  which  demands  that  the  Ger- 
man troops  shall  remain  in  the  border  states  "  until 
the  internal  conditions  permit  of  their  withdrawal." 
Their  withdrawal  now  would  be  the  signal  for  Bol- 
shevik capture  of  power.  As  these  lines  are  be- 
ing written  the  American  newspapers  contain  dis- 
patches rejoicing   at  the   defeat   of   Bolsheviks  by 

[11] 


troops  commanded  by  German  officers.  We  are 
allied  with  Germans  against  Russians.  The  orig- 
inal alignment  of  forces  by  nations  —  Germany 
versus  Russia  —  has  disappeared  and  has  been  re- 
placed by  an  alignment  based  on  class  and  party. 
To  make  the  demonstration  complete  is  the  fact  men- 
tioned in  one  of  the  dispatches  that  the  Soviet  troops 
are  largely  officered  by  German  ex-prisoners  —  pri- 
vates made  officers  by  the  Russian  Soviets.  These 
Germans,  leading  Russians,  are  now  fighting  their 
own  ex-officers  leading  Russians.  We  are  in  alli- 
ance with  Russo-German  bourgeois  and  imperialists 
against  Russo-German  republicans  and  Socialists. 

The  situation  may  be  unavoidable,  and  wise  poli- 
tics. I  am  not  discussing  the  merits  of  the  thing, 
only  calling  attention  to  the  facts,  which  we  do  not 
sufficiently  face. 

The  suppression  of  Soviet  government  in  Russia 
and  establishment  of  order  will  not  be  a  simple  mat- 
ter ;  obviously  it  will  be  extremely  difficult.  And  we 
shall  have  to  deal  not  only  with  Russia,  but  with  con- 
flicts in  most  of  the  small  independencies  which  we 
have  created  —  in  Poland,  Ukrainia,  Jugo-Slavia. 
Already  Poland  is  at  war  with  Ukrainia,  and  Jugo- 
Slavia  in  violent  disagreement  with  Italy.  And  in 
addition  to  controlling  these  numerous  small  inde- 
pendencies there  is  the  problem  of  controlling  So- 
cialist Germany. 

The  German  problem  has  also  entirely  changed  in 
character.  It  is  no  longer  a  problem  of  suppressing 
autocratic  militarism,  but  of  dealing  with  an  auto- 
cratic Socialism.     Germany  has  omitted  the  phase  of 

[12] 


political  democracy  In  her  development,  and  jumped 
in  a  day  from  political  autocracy  to  what  may  well 
prove  to  be  a  proletarian  dictatorship  of  socialist 
principles.  Germany  may  well  so  develop  as  to 
become  the  natural  ally  of  Soviet  Russia.  We  face 
a  Russo-German  Socialist  alliance. 

It  may  be  part  of  the  German  evil  which  has  cursed 
the  world  that  the  German  people  have  shown 
three  qualities  in  highly  developed  degree :  discipline, 
pushed  to  the  point  of  docility,  in  submission  to  the 
constituted  order  whatever  it  may  happen  to  be  (Hin- 
denburg  seemed  to  obey  a  German  Soviet  as  readily 
as,  a  week  previously,  he  had  obeyed  his  mediaeval 
emperor)  ;  cohesion  as  a  racial  and  national  group, 
and  capacity  for  organization. 

We  have  thus  a  solid  Germanic  block  soon  to 
number  a  hundred  million,  influencing  a  Russian 
block  as  large,  and  thrust  into  the  midst  of  smaller 
and  often  mutually  antagonistic  states.  In  fact,  one 
result  of  the  break-up  of  Russia  and  Austria  may  be 
to  make  Germany  (plus  German  Austria)  the  most 
powerful  racially-unified  group  on  the  Continent. 
More  than  one  military  critic  has  expressed  the  opin- 
ion that  Germany  will  be  relatively  stronger  after 
the  war  than  she  was  before !  Such  a  Germany 
would  be  able  to  manipulate  the  mutual  antagonisms 
of  her  lesser  neighbours  in  order  to  secure  for  herself 
the  aid  of  one  against  another.  That  game  has  been 
played  endlessly  In  history. 

What  then  is  the  political  outlook? 

Suppose  we  manage  to  repress  Bolshevism  in  our 
states.     It  will  be  by  means  of  increasing  the  central 

[13] 


authority  and  the  repressive  character  of  our  govern- 
ments, making  them  military,  "  Prussian."  That 
means  bringing  into  power  everywhere  in  the  west- 
ern states  those  parties  that  are  Nationalistic  in  tem- 
per and  outlook.  We  need  not  stop  now  to  examine 
why  parties  that  support  militarist  and  repressive 
forms  of  government  should  also  be  Nationalist, 
Chauvinist.  It  suffices  for  the  moment  that  it  hap- 
pens to  be  the  case.  Between  Nationalism,  Militar- 
ism and  Chauvinism  there  Is  a  close  casual  relation- 
ship.    Note  where  the  fact  lands  us. 

There  seems  a  possibility  that  Germany  may 
break  Into  several  states.  As  the  result  of  what 
forces?  Of  the  coming  of  Bolshevism  to  power  In 
Berlin  and  other  northern  cities.  But  assume  Bol- 
shevism Is  suppressed.  It  will  be  by  virtue  of  the 
coming  to  power  of  a  strong  National  government, 
resting  on  the  appeal  of  the  National  tradition. 
And  then  the  German  solidarity  —  and  German 
menace  —  will  remain.  If  we  have  to  deal  with 
Bolshevism  by  repression  exercised  through  strongly 
centralized  nationalistic  governments  we  have  not 
destroyed  the  specific  danger  It  was  the  object  of  the 
war  to  dispose  of. 

A  large  number  of  lesser  states  endowed  with 
military,  Nationalist  and  Chauvinist  governments 
means  the  perpetuation  of  the  old  rivalries  and  an- 
tagonisms. What  situation  does  that  leave  In 
Europe? 

It  has  taken  four  years  of  war  fully  to  push  home 
to  our  consciousness  —  if  indeed  it  can  be  said  to 

[14] 


have  done  it  yet  —  the  almost  self-evident  truth  that 
in  the  case  of  a  war  fought  by  a  large  alliance  made 
up  of  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  nations,  success  de- 
pends, not  alone  upon  the  possession  of  ample  mili- 
tary force  by  each  separate  state  (although  that  is  ab- 
solutely necessary)  but  also  upon  the  capacity  to  com- 
bine those  forces  to  a  common  purpose,  to  employ 
them  to  a  common  end.  If  incompatibility  of  aim 
splits  the  Alliance,  or  even  prevents  complete  co- 
operation, the  very  power  created  to  give  us  victory 
may  be  used  to  make  it  impossible. 

Mere  military  preparedness  could  not  improve  the 
situation  to  our  advantage.  The  defection  of  Rus- 
sia from  the  Alliance  and  her  political  collapse, 
would  not  have  been  prevented  by  the  fact  of  pos- 
sessing more  military  power.  That  might  have 
made  the  consequences  worse.  If,  for  instance,  the 
stores  of  military  material  which  were  ready  for 
shipment  had  actually  reached  Russia  in  19 17, 
American  troops  might  have  been  killed  by  Ameri- 
can guns  and  shells.  (It  may  well  now  be  happen- 
ing.) In  the  same  way  it  will  serve  Httle  purpose  to 
resuscitate  the  military  power  of  Russia,  if  her  politi- 
cal development  results  in  her  becoming  a  future  ally 
of  Germany. 

The  forces  behind  the  military  disasters  we  have 
actually  had  to  face  as  the  result  of  the  Russian 
collapse,  and  the  dangers  we  may  have  to  face  as  the 
result  of  pro-Prussian  development  of  Russian  pol- 
icy, are  moral,  social,  economic.  Those  forces  will 
determine  the  policy  which  will  direct  the  military 

[15] 


power.  It  is  not  alone  the  gun  which  mutters  but  the 
direction  in  which  it  shoots.  And  that  is  determined 
by  policy. 

It  is  of  the  utmost  importance  to  get  clearly  in 
our  minds  the  outstanding  difference  between  our- 
selves and  the  enemy.  During  the  war  he  managed 
to  achieve  unity  of  a  kind  by  virtue  of  historical  and 
geographical  circumstances.  His  alliance  was  com- 
posed of  a  group  of  states  geographically  contiguous 
with  one  member  of  it  so  predominant  in  power  — 
military,  political  and  economic  —  as  to  be  able  to 
impose  so  long  as  the  alliance  lasted  at  least  unity  of 
policy  and  direction.  Our  alliance  was  made  up  of  a 
much  larger  number  of  states,  not  grouped  together, 
but  scattered  over  the  face  of  the  world,  sepa- 
rated by  great  differences  of  national  character  and 
interest,  and  not  dominated  by  the  preponderant 
power  of  one  member  able  by  simple  virtue  of  that 
power,  autocratically  to  impose  a  single  policy  and 
aim.  And  If  we  are  to  achieve  a  unification  as  ef- 
fective as  that  of  the  enemy  It  must  be  by  virtue  of 
voluntary  co-operation  —  a  democratic  internation- 
alism. Such  a  process  is  much  more  difficult  and 
cumbrous  than  the  autocratic  method,  and  apt  to  be 
much  less  Immediately  efficient.  But  it  is  all  that 
is  left  to  us,  and  whatever  its  difficulty  we  must  em- 
bark on  It.  It  is  our  failure  to  do  this  in  sufficient 
degree  which  in  the  past  has  given,  and  will  in  the 
future  give,  the  enemy  his  one  great  chance  of  suc- 
cess.^ 

^  Lord    Robert    Cecil,    the    British    Under    Secretary   of    State    for 
Foreign  Affairs,  in  a  public  address  said :     "  We  have  got  to  pool 

[i6] 


Now  the  prevailing  idea  seems  to  be  that  unity 
will  be  maintained  if  we  don't  speak  rudely  of  one 
another  or  recriminate  over  reverses.  But  unity 
is  not  achieved  merely  by  good  intention.  No  one 
of  the  Allies  wanted  to  quarrel  with  Russia,  and  we 
were  very  scrupulous  early  in  the  war  about  not  say- 
ing rude  things  concerning  the  Czar.  But  we  see 
now  that  we  should  have  had  a  better  chance  of  un- 
derstanding the  Revolution,  and  of  guiding  its  course, 
if  we  had  reconciled  ourselves  to  a  few  home  truths 
about  the  Czarist  regime.  So  with  Italy.  A  little 
frank  counsel  about  the  conditions  of  the  treaty  of 
April,  19 1 5,  might  have  very  greatly  accelerated  the 
line  taken  three  years  later.  No  one  wants  to  offend 
either  Russia  or  Japan  at  this  juncture.  We  have 
the  best  of  feelings  towards  both.  Yet  a  fatal  dis- 
unity, resulting  in  a  permanent  Russo-German  Alli- 
ance may  come  out  of  the  best  intentions;  it  may 
result  equally  from  our  action  or  our  want  of  action 
in  the  matter  of  intervention.  So  with  Anglo-Ameri- 
can relations  today.  How  many  Americans  realize 
that    just    as    Russian    Socialism    was    unwittingly 

all  our  resources.  ...  In  this  and  many  other  matters  we  are 
fighting  under  a  certain  disadvantage.  Our  enemies  have  been 
content  to  enslave  themselves  to  the  German  general  staff.  That 
gives*  them  a  certain  unity  of  control,  a  certain  perfection  of  ma- 
chinery, which  it  is  difficult  for  us  to  imitate.  For,  after  all,  the 
essential  part  of  our  struggle  is  that  we  are  free  nations,  that  we 
claim  the  right  to  decide,  each  for  ourselves,  what  is  necessary  in 
the  interests  of  the  general  cause.  ...  I  do  not  myself  wish  it 
otherwise.  I  am  satisfied  that  with  all  its  inconveniences  it  give* 
us  a  spiritual  strength  which  ultimately  will  secure  victory  for  us 
over  the  enemy.  But  if  we  are  to  succeed  despite  our  freedom  we 
must  be  prepared  to  scrap  national  prejudice,  national  sentiment, 
and  even  I  would  say,  national  interests.  That  is  essential  if  we 
really  propose  to  make  the  best  use  of  the  strength  we  have." 
(Reported  in  New  York  Times,  Sept.  3,  1918.) 

[17] 


alienated  by  the  Western  democracies  in  1917,  large 
sections  of  European  Radicalism,  particularly  Brit- 
ish, French  and  Belgian,  have  come  to  regard  Ameri- 
can organized  labour  with,  to  say  the  least,  a  certain 
coolness  and  that  (as  the  American  Delegation  which 
visited  the  British  Labour  Leaders  in  May  of  this 
year  admitted  on  their  return)  a  very  considerable 
gulf  has  revealed  itself  as  existing  between  the  or- 
ganized Labour  forces  of  America  and  Western 
Europe.  Certainly  that  was  not  intended.  It  is 
not  by  disregarding  divergences  of  aim  that  they  are 
reconciled.  If  it  be  true  that  Russia  is  deeply  suspici- 
ous of  Japan,  we  shall  not  dispel  that  suspicion  or 
escape  its  consequences  by  pretending  it  does  not  ex- 
ist. Just  in  that  way  did  our  government  deal  with 
certain  facts  of  the  Russian  situation  before  the 
Revolution. 

A  month  or  so  before  the  Czar  was  deposed  a 
British  government  commission,  including  promi- 
nent members  of  the  government,  was  in  Russia  in- 
vestigating conditions.  They  came  to  the  conclu- 
sion—  and  reported  —  that  nothing  in  the  way  of 
a  serious  uprising  was  to  be  expected,  a  conclusion 
from  which,  it  is  rumoured,  only  one  member  of  the 
party  —  a  young  and  obscure  attache  —  seems  to 
have  dissented.  Members  of  the  mission,  rather 
ostentatiously,  went  out  of  their  way  to  approve  the 
Czarist  regime.  We  now  know  indeed  that  the  Rus- 
sian government  itself  did  not  believe  in  the  pos- 
sibility of  wide-spread  action  against  it.  This  also 
is  in  keeping  with  precedent.     The   French  King 

D8] 


wrote  in  his  diary  on  the  night  of  the  fall  of  the 
Bastille:  "  Rien."  Nothing  had  really  happened 
in  his  opinion.  And  when  the  Russian  revolution 
finally  did  come,  the  Western  Allies  adopted  the  gen- 
eral method  of  preventing  contact  with  those  ele- 
ments in  their  own  states  most  sympathetic  to  it. 
If  the  Revolutionists  desired  to  meet  the  Socialists 
of  the  more  thorough-going  type  they  were  offered 
Lord  Milner.  Aggressive  American  Radicalism 
was  represented  by  Mr.  Elihu  Root.  And  we 
seemed  to  imagine  that  this  kind  of  policy  would 
in  some  way  attach  the  Revolutionary  parties  in  Rus- 
sia to  the  general  cause  of  the  Alliance.  When  the 
Revolution  began  to  follow  the  course  that  most 
such  upheavals  have  followed,  we  merely  shouted 
that  the  extremists  were  selling  out  to  the  Germans. 
Lenine  and  Trotsky  were  enemy  agents.  Possibly. 
In  that  case  we  should  have  examined  more  carefully 
the  forces  which  they  would  be  likely  to  use.  We 
did  not  have  the  patience  to  examine  those  forces. 
In  our  attitude  towards  international  socialism  we 
seem  to  follow  the  familiar  curve  of  conduct  toward 
heretical  theories  or  principles.  First  we  deride 
them  as  silly  or  unpracticable,  then  we  declare  fehem 
to  be  dangerous,  shameful,  or  immoral.  Then  we  at- 
tempt suppression.  That  suppression  renders  vio- 
lent and  anti-social,  emotions  which  a  little  wisdom 
might  have  made  socially  useful  and  fertile.  Finally, 
after  sterile  conflicts  and  much  avoidable  damage  we 
pretend  that  we  always  more  or  less  held  these  views, 
proceed  to  give  some  recognition  to  them  and  to  or- 

[19] 


ganize  them  for  our  purposeis.  It  is  the  story  of  all 
heresies  from  early  Christianity  to  modern  feminism. 
The  part  of  wisdom  is  to  see  how  we  can  accelerate 
the  process,  short-circuit  it,  and  come  as  soon  as 
possible  to  the  stage  of  organization. 

The  unity  of  our  scattered  democracies  cannot  be 
based  upon  the  sheer  suppression  —  or  misrepre- 
sentation —  of  the  moral  forces  represented  in  the 
social  revolution.  There  is  but  one  way  to  handle 
them :  to  try  and  understand  them  and  to  give  them 
constitutionally  organized  expression,  by  deliberately 
endowing  our  international  institutions  with  organs 
for  such  expression.  Because  of  the  very  lack  of 
docility  in  our  democracies,  the  policy  of  repression 
as  a  means  of  insuring  unity  must  fail.  If  we  cannot 
allow  Stockholm  conferences  of  socialists  then  our 
official  conferences  must  duly  provide  for  the  expres- 
sion of  the  opinion  of  all  parties,  just  as  our  national 
legislatures  do. 

The  British  Labour  Party  is  relatively  a  vastly 
more  powerful  body  today  than  were  the  revolution- 
ary parties  of  Russia  in  191 6.  It  is  in  close  co-opera- 
tion with  hardly  less  powerful  labour  and  socialist 
bodies  in  France  and  Italy.  These  inter-Allied 
forces  stand  in  common  for  a  certain  programme. 
They  desire  to  come  into  contact  with  American 
labour  and  socialist  forces.  And  not  only  is  every- 
thing done  to  prevent  real  contact  between  the  radical 
elements  in  the  various  countries  (which  are  not 
pro-German  or  anti-war  elements,  as  the  programme 
of  the  Inter-Allied  Labour  and  Socialist  Conference 
:n  London  proves)  but  we  indulge  in  what  is,  in  fact, 

[20] 


reciprocal  misrepresentation  and  deception.  The 
delegation  expressly  chosen  by  the  Conference  (of 
February  25th,  191 8)  representing  the  immense  pre- 
ponderance of  the  labour  and  socialist  parties  in 
Britain,  France,  Belgium  and  Italy  is  discour- 
aged or  prevented  from  visiting  America.  But 
there  is  sent  to  America,  as  representative  of  Brit- 
ish Labour,  a  delegation  which  the  British  Labour 
Party  repudiates.  There  goes  from  America  a  dele- 
gation from  which  is  carefully  excluded  just  those 
elements  in  American  radical  opinion  that  favour  the 
European  Labour  attitude.  The  attempt  is  thus 
made  to  keep  from  both  European  and  American 
public  opinion  a  knowledge  of  the  real  nature  of  the 
European  movement  —  just  as  was  done  in  the  case 
of  the  Russian  Revolution.  American  Labour  as 
represented  by  the  American  Federation  of  Labour, 
is  led  to  intervene  in  British  politics  by  supporting 
one  particular  party  in  British  Labour  politics  as 
against  another  —  but  to  support  the  party  which 
most  certainly  is  not  destined  to  come  to  power. 

We  are  creating,  by  such  methods,  just  the  kind 
of  misunderstanding  and  conflict  which  detached  the 
Russian  democracy  from  the  cause  of  the  war.  Thus 
we  find  the  Chairman  of  the  American  Labour  Mis- 
sion which  visited  England  in  May  last,  giving  on 
his  return,  interviews  to  the  Press,  in  which  he  is 
reported  as  saying: 

"  There  are  In  England,  certain  classes  of  people  who 
term  themselves  '  leaders  of  labour  '  who  are,  in  reality,  not 
working  men,  but  members  of  a  labour  political  party  "... 

[21] 


[He  referred,  he  said,  to  Mr.  Arthur  Henderson  and  his  as- 
sociates]. "  We  had  opportunities  to  speak  to  thousands  of 
working  men  in  shipyards,  munition  plants,  and  railroad 
shops.  We  found  that  in  all  cases  the  policy  of  the  Ameri- 
can Federation  of  Labour,  that  no  representative  of  Ameri- 
can labour  should  meet  in  conference  with  representative 
workers  of  enemy  countries  so  long  as  the  war  lasts,  was 
received  with  cheers  and  practically  unanimous  approval. 
.  .  .  The  labourers  of  Great  Britain  are  organizing  a  new 
political  party.  A  convention  is  scheduled  for  sometime  in 
June  and  under  the  terms  of  the  call  none  but  workers  will 
be  permitted  to  be  affiliated  with  this  new  body.  The  French 
workingmen  are  bothered,  as  are  the  British,  by  politicians 
connected  with  the  Socialist  party.  The  majority  of  the 
French  Socialists  are  in  accord  with  the  policy  of  the  Amer- 
ican Federation  of  Labour.  .  .  ." 

The  newspaper  report  adds :  "  The  chairman  of 
the  Mission  said  he  believed  that  many  of  the  French 
agitators  who  bothered  labour  were  tools  of  Ger- 
man propagandists,  and  that  some  had  been  dis- 
covered to  be  in  the  pay  of  the  Germans."  ^ 

1  Professor  Arthur  O.  Lovejoy  of  Johns  Hopkins  University,  who 
accompanied  the  mission,  writes:  "In  one  important  particular, 
the  activities  of  the  American  labour  delegates  in  England  and 
France  are  open  to  some  legitimate  criticism.  Their  tone  and 
manner,  or  at  least  the  tone  and  manner  of  their  chairman,  in 
dealing  with  those  with  whom  they  differed  were  often  needlessly 
brusque,  harsh  and  unconciliatory.  The  suaviter  in  modo  is  ap- 
parently not  considered  an  essential  in  American  trade  union 
diplomacy.  And  they  seemed  to  me  in  their  public  utterances 
to  give  too  little  specific  emphasis  to  the  more  constructive  parts 
of  President  Wilson's  programme  of  war  aims,  to  which,  however, 
in  general  terms,  they  gave  unqualified  support.  Concerning  the 
hope  of  preventing  future  wars  and  future  acts  of  international 
injustice  by  the  establishment  of  a  genuine  Society  of  Nations,  the 
spokesmen  abroad  of  the  American  Federation  of  Labor  had  ap- 
parently little  to  say.  Yet  this,  surely,  is  the  supreme  hope  and 
object  of  America  in  the  war.  It  is  also  the  only  hope  which  can 
in  the  long  run  be  relied  upon  to  keep  the  labouring  masses  of 
the  Allied  countries  steadfast  through  the  immeasurable  sacrifices 

[22] 


The  meaning  of  the  interview  can  hardly  be  mis- 
i.i::erpreted:  British  Labour  is  not  represented  by 
the  British  Labour  Party,  nor  French  Socialism  by 
the  party  of  which  men  like  Albert  Thomas  were  the 
leaders.  This  of  course,  is  in  accordance  with  the 
known  views  —  many  times  expressed  —  of  Mr. 
Gompers,  the  President  of  the  American  Federation 
of  Labour  who  nominated  the  Mission. 

Now  the  American  Labour  Leaders  may  have, 
as  the  result  of  three  weeks  passed  in  England,  a 
very  penetrating  vision  into  the  future  of  British 
politics.  Their  judgment  as  to  which  party  in  Brit- 
ish Labour  politics  is  likely  to  come  to  power  may 
be  very  much  better  than  that  of  men  like  Arthur 
Henderson  who  have  passed  a  long  life  in  British 
Labour  organization,  and  the  British  Parliament,  and 
have  been  members  of  a  British  War  Cabinet.  But 
imagine  for  the  sake  of  argument  that  these  Ameri- 
can Labour  representatives,  standing,  in  the  eyes  of 

which  the  war  imposes  upon  them.  It  is  not  by  an  endless  reitera- 
tion of  the  phrases  '  German  autocracy '  and  '  making  the  world 
safe  for  democracy '  that  the  plain  man  can  be  steeled  to  endure 
all  things  for  the  sake  of  defeating  the  German  military  power. 
His  very  hatred  and  weariness  of  the  war  must  be  made  into 
motives  for  continuing  it  until  mankind  can  win  adequate  guar- 
anties against  the  recurrence  of  these  abominations.  '  Never 
again!'  is  the  battle  cry  that  touches  most  deeply  the  general 
heart.  And  such  a  cry,  while  it  directs  attention  to  the  urgent 
political  task  of  organizing  an  effective  League  of  Nations  —  and 
of  beginning  its  organization  no^r  —  does  not  tend  to  direct  at- 
tention from  the  hard  military  necessities  of  the  moment.  For 
there  is  no  argument  easier  to  make  clear  to  the  man  of  plain 
common  sense  than  that  which  shows  it  to  be  the  first  pre-condition 
to  the  establishment  of  a  secure,  just  and  peaceful  international 
order,  that  the  arch-enemies  of  such  an  order  shall  be  defeated, 
discredited  by  disaster,  and  rendered  powerless  to  convert  human 
society  a  second  time  into  the  thing  of  horror  that  it  now  is." — 
Se<w  Republic,  June  15,  1918. 

[23] 


the  British  working  classes  for  the  American  govern- 
ment, have  misjudged  forces  and  that  in  the  near 
future  some  of  the  men  so  bluntly  criticized  by  the 
Chairman  of  the  American  Mission  as  politicians  and 
theorists  become  once  more  (what  they  were  just  re- 
cently) members  or  supporters  of  the  British  govern- 
ment, and  perhaps  this  time,  its  predominant  ele- 
ment. 

And  imagine,  on  the  other  hand,  a  situation  in 
which  that  party  in  British  Labour  politics,  particu- 
larly lauded  by  the  American  mission,  are  the  de- 
feated party,  in  opposition  to  the  British  government. 
It  would  hardly  make  for  the  solidarity  of  the  Anglo- 
American  democracy. 

It  Is  not  here  a  mere  question  of  whether  British 
and  French  Socialists  shall  confer  with  German  So- 
cialists, directly  in  a  Stockholm  Conference,  or  do  so 
through  a  Swedish  or  Dutch  Socialist.  An  Ameri- 
can commentator  puts  It  in  these  terms: 

"  The  British  Labour  Party,  In  their  magnani- 
mous effort  to  rise  to  the  challenge  of  the  new  world, 
not  unreasonably  counted  upon  the  sympathetic  un- 
derstanding and  encouragement  of  the  organized 
labour  movement  of  democratic  America.  But  their 
hopes  in  this  quarter  have  been  disappointed.  Their 
programme  was  Implicitly  repudiated  by  the  Thirty- 
eighth  Annual  Convention  of  the  American  Federa- 
tion of  Labour  which  adjourned  in  St.  Paul  last  week. 
Its  authors  were  denounced  as  theorists  and  poli- 
ticians, more  Interested  In  maintaining  their  political 
positions  than  In  solving  trade  union  problems.  The 
Convention  decided  to  adhere  to  Its  traditional  al- 

[24] 


legiance  to  pure  and  simple  trade  unionism  on  the 
apparent  theory  that  the  interests  of  organized  la- 
bour are  essentially  distinct  from  the  larger  demo- 
cratic interests  of  the  nation,  and  that  the  responsi- 
bility of  American  labour  leaders  properly  begins 
and  ends  with  the  vested  interests  of  the  present  and 
prospective  dues-paying  membership  of  the  trade 
unions.  If  this  theory  were  sound,  if  the  interests  of 
labour  were  separate  and  distinct  from  the  larger  in- 
terests of  our  democracy,  the  decisions  of  the  Ameri- 
can Federation  would  be  nobody's  legitimate  con- 
cern but  its  own.  But  the  theory  is  not  sound.  I^ 
the  new  world  that  is  to  follow  in  the  wake  of  the 
war  is  to  be  a  democratic  world,  it  is  inevitable  that 
the  labour  movement  should  be  at  its  very  heart  and 
driving  centre.  If  the  leadership  of  the  labour 
movement  is  caste-bound  and  untouched  by  the 
larger  democratic  idealism  that  is  stirring  in  the 
world  today,  it  will  be  a  drag  upon  democracy  and 
an  effective  ally  of  the  forces  of  Tory  reaction."  ^ 

Speaking  of  recent  tendencies  in  the  elections  of 
officials  in  the  American  Federation  of  Labour,  the 
same  paper  declares  that: 

"  If  the  election  of  these  labour  Tories  means  any- 
thing it  means  that  the  policy  of  pure  and  simple 
trade  unionism  is  rapidly  going  to  seed.  Worse 
than  this,  it  means  that  at  the  end  of  the  war,  when 
the  support  of  the  radical  minority  will  in  all  like- 
lihood be  withdrawn  from  Mr.  Gompers,  not  the 
earnest  and  sincere  conservatives  who  under  Mr. 
Gompers'  able  leadership  have  built  up  the  American 

1  The  New  Republic. 


trade  union  movement,  but  the  office-seeking  labour 
politicians,  men  without  idealism  or  social  vision  of 
any  kind,  will  be  in  the  ascendant.  The  prospect  of 
this  possibility  is  a  matter  of  grave  and  legitimate 
concern,  not  only  to  the  dues-paying  membership  of 
the  Federation,  but  equally  to  all  forward-looking 
and  sincere  democrats.  By  standing  pat  on  their  out- 
worn policy  of  pure  and  simple  trade  unionism  the 
present  leaders  of  American  labour  are  not  only 
jeopardizing  their  leadership  within  the  organized 
labour  movement,  but  are  also  forswearing  that 
larger  leadership  to  which  the  new  world  beyond  the 
war  is  calling  them." 

The  matter  goes  very  much  deeper  than  differences 
of  this  kind.  The  Radical  of  the  Allied  Democra- 
cies has  come  to  the  conclusion  that  the  changing  of 
the  existing  social  system  is  part  of  the  object  of  the 
war  itself;  that  a  change  in  the  status  of  the  French 
and  British  peoples  is  as  much  a  "  war  aim  "  as  a 
change  in  the  status  of  the  Alsatians,  Czecho-Slovaks 
or  Dalmatians,  and  that  that  part  of  the  settlement 
will  greatly  affect  the  future  alignment  of  the  States 
and  peoples.  This  aim  was  not,  it  is  true,  among 
the  original  objects  of  the  war,  but  it  is  now  recog- 
nized that  it  has  become  the  indispensable  condition 
of  the  complete  achievement  of  the  original  objects: 
real  freedom  and  lasting  peace. 

A  popular,  possibly  preponderant,  American  view 
of  the  scope  and  objects  of  the  war,  is  that  when  the 
kaiser  has  been  "  canned  "  and  Germany  thoroughly 
licked,  we  shall  all  go  back  to  the  old  world  which 
we  knew  roughly  in  19 14.     It  is  an  erroneous  and 

[26] 


naTve  conception.  The  European  Is  fully  aware 
that  if  the  war  is  to  give  results  commensurate  with 
the  price  that  has  been  paid  for  it,  it  must  result  in  a 
great  deal  more  than  the  "  canning  of  the  Kaiser," 
and  the  Hcking  of  Germany.  We  might  secure  those 
things  and  yet  have  failed  utterly  to  make  the  world 
safe  for  democracy,  or  our  children  secure  from  war 
and  mihtary  tyranny.  The  Western  Democracies 
of  Europe  know  too  well  how  fatuous  is  the  op- 
timism which  would  regard  the  defeat  of  Germany 
as  synonymous  with  a  free  and  warless  world. 

"  War,"  writes  Mr.  Lowes  Dickinson,  "  pro- 
ceeds from  wrong  ideas  and  wrong  policies;  in  these 
ideas  and  policies  all  nations  have  been  implicated; 
and  this  war  will  have  been  fought  in  vain  unless  it 
leads  to  a  change  of  attitude  in  all  governments  and 
all  peoples.  This  change,  I  agree,  is  most  required 
in  Germany,  and  may  be  most  difficult  to  effect  there. 
But  there  are,  in  all  countries,  traditions,  prejudices, 
and  illusions  making  for  war."  And  it  is  these  that 
must  be  destroyed. 

These  passions  and  illusions  have  their  roots  pene- 
trating deeply  into  the  soil  of  an  old  social  system. 
So  long  as  that  system  remains  as  we  have  known  it 
in  Europe,  dominated  by  the  privileged  position  of 
a  small  economic  autocracy  possessing  an  influence 
and  authority,  which  cause  it  to  nurse  pride  of  place, 
instincts  of  mastery,  belief  in  force  and  successful 
rivalry  —  so  long  as  this  remains,  the  British  democ- 
racy have  come  to  feel,  war  will  always  threaten 
us.  Vaguely  and  dimly  it  is  being  increasingly  real- 
ized that  many  of  the  qualities  developed  by  the  old 

[27] 


competitive  social  system  render  war  ultimately  in- 
evitable. "  Our  institutions  rest  upon  injustice  and 
authority:  it  is  only  by  closing  our  hearts  against 
sympathy  and  our  minds  against  truth  that  we  can 
endure  the  oppression  and  unfairness  by  which  we 
profit."  ^  No  secure  world  can  be  built  on  such 
foundations,  however  Germany  be  defeated. 

The  supreme  paradox  of  our  time  is  that  this  war 
fought  for  the  purpose  of  giving  us  secure  democ- 
racy and  permanent  peace,  has  developed  forces 
which  endanger  those  things,  and  which,  unless  rad- 
ically dealt  with  might  well  destroy  them.  If  our 
economic  system  is  to  be  based  largely  upon  the  com- 
petitive scramble  for  profits;  our  states  to  be  under 
the  influence  of  huge  industrial  and  financial  cor- 
porations seeking  profits  through  foreign  investment 
and  the  exploitation  of  foreign  undeveloped  terri- 
tory; if  these  corporations  are  to  be  grouped  into  a 
series  of  separate  national  organizations,  drifting, 
through  lack  of  agreement  into  competition  the  one 
with  the  other;  if  the  individual  self-assertion  that  is 
a  necessary  part  of  success  in  such  an  order  is  to  be 
regarded  as  the  prime  social  virtue,  and  if,  together 
with  all  this,  there  are  to  be  rival  military  organiza- 
tions on  a  vast  scale  —  then  further  collective  homi- 
cide is  a  certainty. 

And  forces  rooted  in  the  old  social  and  economic 
system  are  already  pushing  us  in  that  direction. 
Protectionist  schemes,  embodied  in  grandiose  plans 
of  a  closed  empire,  or  Imperial  preference,  and  the 
State  exploitation  of  the  raw  material  of  the  de- 

ifiertrand  Russell,  Why  Men  Fight. 

[28] 


pendencies,  have  already  won  great  favour.  With 
them  are  associated  schemes  of  more  complete  mih- 
tarization  than  in  the  past.  Already,  both  in  Eng- 
land and  the  United  States,  we  have  demands  for 
the  introduction  of  a  permanent  system  of  compul- 
sory and  universal  military  training,  the  advocacy  of 
which  is  already  accompanied  with  a  disparagement 
of  the  very  ideals  of  internationalism  which  both 
America  and  England  proclaimed  as  their  chief  aim 
when  they  first  entered  the  war. 

In  so  far  as  this  is  a  war  for  the  destruction  of 
militarism,  it  must  be  a  war  for  the  destruction  of 
that  part  of  the  old  social  system  in  which  militar- 
ism inheres.  The  very  first  paragraphs  of  the  British 
Labour  Party  Report  on  Reconstruction  makes  this 
evident. 

"  The  view  of  the  Labour  Party,"  says  this  report, 
"  is  that  what  has  to  be  reconstructed  after  the  war 
is  not  this  or  that  Government  Department,  or  this 
or  that  piece  of  social.machinery;  but,  so  far  as  Brit- 
ain is  concerned,  society  itself.  The  individual 
worker,  or  for  that  matter  the  individual  statesman, 
immersed  in  daily  routine  —  like  the  individual  sol- 
dier in  a  battle  —  easily  fails  to  understand  the  mag- 
nitude and  far-reaching  importance  of  what  is  taking 
place  around  him.  How  does  it  fit  together  as  a 
whole?  How  does  it  look  from  a  distance? 
Count  Okuma,  one  of  the  oldest,  most  experienced 
and  ablest  of  the  statesmen  of  Japan,  watching  the 
present  conflict  from  the  other  side  of  the  globe, 
declares  it  to  be  nothing  less  than' the  death  of  Euro- 
pean civilization.    Just  as  in  the  past  the  civilizations 

[29] 


of  Babylon,  Egypt,  Greece,  Carthage,  and  the  great 
Roman  Empire  have  been  successively  destroyed,  so, 
in  the  judgment  of  this  detached  observer,  the  civil- 
ization of  all  Europe  is  even  now  receiving  its  death- 
blow. We  of  the  Labour  Party  can  so  far  agree  in 
this  estimate  as  to  recognize,  in  the  present  world 
catastrophe,  if  not  the  death  in  Europe  of  civiliza- 
tion itself,  at  any  rate  the  culmination  and  collapse 
of  a  distinctive  industrial  civilization,  which  the 
workers  will  not  seek  to  reconstruct.  At  such  times 
of  crisis  it  is  easier  to  slip  into  ruin  than  to  progress 
into  higher  forms  of  organization."  That  is  the 
problem  as  it  presents  itself  to  the  Labour  Party  to- 
day. 

"  What  this  war  is  consuming  is  not  merely 
the  security,  the  homes,  the  livelihood  and  the 
lives  of  millions  of  innocent  families,  and  an 
enormous  proportion  of  all  the  accumulated 
wealth  of  the  world,  but  also  the  very  basis  of 
the  peculiar  social  order  in  which  it  has  arisen. 
The  individualist  system  of  capitalist  produc- 
tion, based  on  the  private  ownership  and  com- 
petitive administration  of  land  and  capital,  with 
its  reckless  'profiteering'  and  wage-slavery; 
with  its  glorification  of  the  unhampered  struggle 
for  the  means  of  life  and  its  hypocritical  pre- 
tence of  the  '  survival  of  the  fittest ' ;  with  the 
monstrous  inequality  of  circumstances  which  it 
produces  and  the  degradation  and  brutalization, 
both  moral  and  spiritual,  resulting  therefrom, 
may,  we  hope,  indeed  have  received  a  death- 
blow. With  it  must  go  the  political  system  and 
[30] 


ideas  in  which  it  naturally  found  expression. 
We  of  the  Labour  Party,  whether  in  opposition 
or  in  due  time  called  upon  to  form  an  Admin- 
istration, will  certainly  lend  no  hand  to  its  re- 
vival. On  the  contrary,  we  shall  do  our  utmost 
to  see  that  it  is  buried  with  the  millions  whom 
it  has  done  to  death.  If  we  in  Britain  are  to 
escape  from  the  decay  of  civilization  itself, 
which  the  Japanese  statesman  foresees,  we  must 
ensure  that  what  is  presently  to  be  built  up  is  a 
new  social  order,  based  not  on  fighting,  but  on 
fraternity  —  not  on  the  competitive  struggle 
for  the  means  of  bare  life,  but  on  a  deliberately 
planned  co-operation  in  production  and  distri- 
bution for  the  benefit  of  all  who  participate  by 
hand  or  by  brain  —  not  on  the  utmost  possible 
inequality  of  riches,  but  on  a  systematic  ap- 
proach towards  a  healthy  equality  of  material 
circumstances  for  every  person  born  into  the 
world  —  not  on  an  enforced  dominion  over  sub- 
ject races,  subject  Colonies,  subject  classes  or 
a  subject  sex,  but,  in  industry  as  well  as  in  gov- 
ernment, on  that  equal  freedom,  that  general 
consciousness  of  consent,  and  that  widest  pos- 
sible participation  in  power,  both  economic  and 
political,  which  is  characteristic  of  democracy." 

It  is  realized  that  this  new  world  will  not  come  of 
itself;  that  the  democracies  of  Europe  will  have  to 
fight  for  it  against  powerfully  entrenched  interests. 
Where  will  the  American  democracy  stand  in  that 
fight?     Will  it  join  hands  with  the  European  dc- 

[31] 


mocracles  in  giving  battle  to  the  forces  of  the  old 
order,  or  will  it,  through  ignorance,  or  the  blindness 
of  war  emotions,  compound  with  these  forces? 

We  must  face  the  fact  that  there  is  a  subtle  yet 
deep  division  between  the  post-war  psychology  of  the 
American  and  European  peoples,  due  in  part  at  least 
to  the  differing  degrees  of  their  sacrifice. 

Mrs.  Margaret  Deland,  writing  from  France  of 
those  who  have  "  opened  their  windows  towards  the 
East,"  says: 

"  Their  '  state  of  mind '  bids  them  look  beyond  the 
gathering  darkness  toward  a  Dawn.  But  they  do  not  deny 
the  terrors  of  the  dark.  During  the  hours  before  day- 
break may  come  —  God  knows  what !  But  whatever  comes, 
it  will  be  part  of  a  process  which  will  bring  about  an 
adjustment  of  the  social  order.  It  is  probable,  they  say, 
that  Gaston,  with  his  hideous  little  gesture,  will  have  a  hand 
in  it.  This  is  their  hope  —  a  new  Heaven  and  a  new  Earth; 
Chaos  dragged  from  the  throat  of  Civilization;  our  code  of 
morals  saved  from  the  assault  of  an  efficiency  which  would 
reinforce  itself  by  polygamy ;  the  Idealism  of  Jesus  preserved 
for  our  children's  children!  All  this  through  Gaston's  sur- 
gery. He  accomplished,  they  say,  a  good  deal  in  1789. 
*  But  that  which  is  coming,'  said  a  Frenchman  smiling,  '  will 
be,  for  thoroughness,  to  1789,  as  a  Sunday  picnic,  as  you  call 
it.'  Another  of  the  Intellectuals  put  it  in  a  way  which 
would,  I  think,  have  appealed  to  Gaston: 

"  '  It  will  come,'  said  he,  *  the  new  world !  But  first  will 
come  the  world  revolution.  It  has  already  begun  in  Russia. 
-After  the  Peace,  Germany  will  explode,  then  England,  then 
France,  and  then  you  people  —  with  your  imitation  Democ- 
racy!'" 

Perhaps  the  French  leaning  to  the  dramatic  has 
a  little   to   do  with   this.     It  is  not  necessary  to 

[32] 


imagine  a  duplication  of  the  Russian  phantasmagoria 
in  the  Western  Democracies.  The  point  that  con- 
cerns us  is  that  this  deep  moral  disturbance  to  which 
so  many  witnesses  testify,  will  profoundly  affect  the 
character  of  the  world  after  the  war,  its  social  com- 
position, as  well  as  the  changes  on  the  map.  If  we 
would  realize  whither  we  are  tending  we  must  enter 
with  some  understanding  Into  the  feeling  of  those 
who  have  suffered.  If,  as  we  proclaim  so  often, 
the  fact  of  war,  and  the  consecration  of  the  youth  of 
the  world  to  death  —  to  suffering  it  and  to  inflicting 
It  —  is  certain  to  bring  in  its  train  a  great  moral 
revolution,  that  revolution  must  deeply  affect  the 
Reconstruction,  the  life  that  is  to  come  after  the 
war.  If  our  easy  generalizations  on  the  moral  im- 
plications of  the  soldier's  life  have  any  value  at  all, 
then  that  reconstruction  will  be  the  work  of  a  trans- 
formed generation  of  men. 

This  relation  of  the  temper  created  by  the  long 
years  of  war  to  the  problems  of  the  reconstruction, 
as  well  as  the  civilian  refusal  or  failure  to  face  it, 
Is  sketched  with  bitter  pessimism  by  an  English  of- 
ficer. 

"  It  is  very  nice  to  be  home  again.  Yet  am  I  at  home? 
One  sometimes  doubts  it.  There  are  occasions  when  I  feel 
like  a  visitor  among  strangers  whose  intentions  are  kindly,  but 
whose  modes  of  thoyght  I  neither  altogether  understand  nor 
altogether  approve.  You  speak  lightly,  you  assume  that  we 
shall  speak  lightly  of  things,  emotions,  states  of  mind,  human 
relationships,  and  affairs  which  are  to  us  solemn  or  terrible. 

"  I  cannot  dismiss  as  trivial  the  picture  which  5^ou  make 
to  yourselves  of  war  and  the  mood  in  which  you  contem- 
plate that  work  of  art.     They  are  an  index  of  the  temper 

[331 


in  which  you  will  approach  the  problems  of  peace.  You  are 
anxious  to  have  a  truthful  account  of  the  life  of  a  soldier 
at  the  front.  You  would  wish  to  enter,  as  far  as  human 
beings  can  enter,  into  his  internal  life,  to  know  how  he  re- 
gards the  tasks  imposed  upon  him,  how  he  conceives  his 
relation  to  the  enemy  and  to  yourselves,  from  what  sources 
he  derives  encouragement  and  comfort.  You  would  wish 
to  know  these  things;  we  should  wish  you  to  know  them. 
Yet  between  you  and  us  there  hangs  a  veil.  It  is  mainly 
of  your  own  unconscious  creation.  It  is  not  a  negative,  but 
a  positive  thing.  It  is  not  intellectual,  it  is  moral.  It  is 
not  ignorance,  it  is  falsehood.  I  read  your  papers  and 
listen  to  your  conversation,  and  I  see  clearly  that  you  have 
chosen  to  make  to  yourselves  an  image  of  war,  not  as  it  is, 
but  of  a  kind  which,  being  picturesque,  flatters  your  appetite 
for  novelty,  for  excitement,  for  easy  admiration  without 
troubling  you  with  masterful  emotions.  You  have  chosen,  I 
say,  to  make  an  image,  because  you  do  not  like,  or  cannot 
bear  the  truth;  because  j'ou  are  afraid  of  what  may  happen 
to  your  souls  if  you  expose  them  to  the  inconsistencies  and 
contradictions,  the  doubts  and  bewilderments,  which  lie  be- 
neath the  surface  of  things.  You  are  not  deceived  as  to  the 
facts;  for  facts  of  this  order  are  not  worth  official  lying. 
You  are  deceived  as  to  the  Fact. 

"  Perhaps  I  do  you  an  injustice.  But  that  intimation  does 
seem  to  me  to  peep  through  some  of  your  respectable  para- 
graphs. As  I  read  them,  I  reflect  upon  the  friends  who, 
after  suffering  various  degrees  of  torture,  died  in  the  illusion 
that  war  was  not  the  last  word  of  Christian  wisdom.  And 
I  have  a  sensation  as  of  pointed  ears  and  hairy  paws  and  a 
hideous  ape-face  grinning  into  mine  —  sin  upon  sin,  misery 
upon  misery,  to  the  end  of  the  world. 

"  O  gentle  public, —  for  you  were  once  gentle  and  may 
be  so  again, —  put  all  these  delusions  from  your  mind.  The 
reality  is  horrible,  but  it  is  not  so  horrible  as  the  grimacing 
phantom  which  you  have  imagined.  Your  soldiers  are 
neither  so  foolish,  nor  so  brave,  nor  so  wicked,  as  the  me- 
chanical dolls  who  grin  and  kill  and  grin  in  the  columns  of 

[34] 


your  newspapers.  The  war  ...  is  a  burden  they  carry 
with  aching  bones,  hating  it,  hoping  dimly  that,  by  shoulder- 
ing it  now,  they  will  save  others  from  it  in  the  future.  They 
carry  their  burden  with  little  help  from  you.  For  an  army 
does  not  live  by  munitions  alone,  but  also  by  fellowship  in  a 
moral  idea  or  purpose.     And  that  you  cannot  give  us." 

That  was  addressed  to  the  English  public  in  the 
spring  of  19 17.  Perhaps  the  last  eighteen  months 
have  narrowed  a  little  in  England  that  gulf  between 
the  army  and  the  civil  public  about  which  he  wrote. 

It  is  true,  of  course,  that  some  of  the  moral  crises 
of  Europe  will  not  be  duplicated  in  America.  It 
is  quite  unlikely  that  Americans  will  ever  be  called 
upon  to  face  the  degree  of  sacrifice  that  has  been  de- 
manded of  France,  of  Belgium,  and  even  of  Eng- 
land; and  unlikely,  in  consequence,  that  a  certain 
group  of  moral  forces  will  operate  in  this  country 
as  they  have  operated  in  Europe.  But  many  cir- 
cumstances of  war  time  which  have  played  so  large  a 
part  in  the  production  of  the  British  Labour  Party 
and  its  programme  are  the  circumstances  of  Amer- 
ica ;  the  very  war  measures  which  have  given  rise  to 
the  Labour  Programme,  are  being  enacted  In  this 
country;  the  very  problems  which  it  attempts  to  solve 
are  arising  here;  the  very  selfsame  questions  which 
face  the  English  electorate  will  sooner  or  later,  be- 
cause of  steps  already  taken  by  the  American  gov- 
ernment, inevitably  be  presented  to  the  American 
electorate.  Possibly  that  electorate  is  not  yet  po- 
litically conscious  in  sufficient  degree  to  realize  the 
issue.  In  that  case  the  conflict  will  be  deferred. 
But  the  issue  will  remain. 

[35] 


CHAPTER  II 

THE   ARRIVAL   OF   THE   PROBLEM   LN  AMERICA 

The  growth  of  radically  socializing  policies  throughout  the 
world  is  not  due  to  socialist  propaganda,  or  the  influence  of 
socialists,  but  to  the  war  measures  of  governments  often  anti- 
socialist  in  opinion  and  intention.  Thus  the  introduction  of 
extremely  radical  policies  into  America  is  not  the  work  of  the 
Socialist  Party,  or  the  I.  W.  W.  but  results  from  the  actual 
measures  of  the  government  for  war  purposes.  These  revo- 
lutionary measures,  which  could  never  have  been  introduced 
by  Socialist  influence,  have  actually  been  put  into  effect,  and 
the  question  which  will  shortly  present  itself  to  the  American 
public  is  "  Which  of  these  measures  shall  be  undone  ?  "  and 
out  of  that  question  may  arise,  with  the  changes  wrought 
by  war  conditions,  a  re-alignment  of  political  forces,  as  in 
England.     The  British  problems  are  already  here. 

The  following  is  from  a  long  article  running  to 
several  columns  which  appears  in  The  New  York 
Times :  ^ 

It  seems  a  profound  thing  to  say  that  at  the  close  of  the 
war  we  shall  not  go  back  to  old  conditions;  that  all  of  our 
time-honoured  institutions  have  been  shaken  up;  that  we  are 
going  forward  to  revolutionary  conditions;  that  labour, 
which  has  been  "  pressed  down,"  is  going  to  come  into  its 
own  —  in  fact,  is  going  to  control  our  industrial  institutions ; 
and  that  the  "  brotherhood  of  man  "  and  the  "  democratiza- 
tion of  industry  "  are  going  to  be  realized.  .  .  . 

*June  2,  1918. 

[36] 


Just  what  is  it  that  labour  is  likely  to  demand  at  the  close 
of  the  war  that  it  is  not  demanding  now  and  did  not  demand 
before  the  war?  What  part  of  labour  has  ideas  at  all  in 
common  with  the  American  Bolsheviki  ?  .  .  . 

It  goes  without  saying  that  after  the  war,  as  now,  the 
I.  W.  W.  and  Socialist  Party  will  be  urging  their  respective 
philosophies  —  for  it  is  hardly  conceivable  that  these  two 
groups  can  demand  any  more  after  the  war  than  they  are 
demanding  now.  .  .  . 

And  also,  I  feel  sure  that  the  real  labour  movement  of  the 
country,  consisting  of  the  American  Federation  of  Labour 
and  the  Railway  Brotherhoods  .  .  .  will  not  be  demanding 
anything  different  from  what  it  is  demanding  today,  viz; 
better  wages,  shorter  hours,  more  humane  working  and  living 
conditions,  and  the  right  to  organize  the  workers  and  be 
heard  collectively.  While  it  is  true  that  there  is  a  small 
percentage,  less  than  lO  per  cent,  of  these  trade  unionists 
who  are  members  of  the  Socialist  and  I.  W.  W.  movements, 
the  90  per  cent,  have  passed  on  all  the  theories  of  these  revo- 
lutionary movements  and  have  rejected  them.  .  .  . 

A  joint  committee  .  .  .  composed  of  an  equal  number  of 
representatives  of  the  American  Federation  of  Labour,  repre- 
senting 135  national  crafts,  and  of  the  National  Industrial 
Conference  Board,  made  up  of  fifteen  national  employers'  or- 
ganizations, whose  members  employ  millions  of  men  .  .  .  has 
unanimously  issued  a  programme  that  is  in  effect  a  crushing 
blow  to  the  Hillquits,  the  Hay  woods,  the  Bergers,  the  Emma 
Goldmans,  the  revolutionary  preachers  and  college  professors, 
the  New  Republic  and  the  Survey  editors,  and  all  other 
Arthur  Hendersons  and  Sidney  Webbs  of  this  country.  .  .  . 

Changes  after  the  war?  Yes!  A  better  and  higher  civi- 
lization? Yes!  Socialism,  I.  W.  W.,  Bolshevism,  anarchy? 
No !     That  is  my  firm  conviction. 

The  writer  is  Mr.  Ralph  M.  Easley,  the  Chairman 
of  the  Executive  Council  of  the  National  Civic  Fed- 
eration, and,  consequently  an  authority  of  weight, 

[37] 


whose  opinion  is  likely  to  be  a  representative  one  In 
the  world  of  American  industry.  He  expresses  what 
is  very  probably  a  wide-spread  view  in  this  country. 

It  will  be  noted  that  Mr.  Easley  ventures  into 
prophecy.  The  present  writer  will  not  follow  him 
into  that  region.  The  object  of  these  pages  is  to 
call  attention  to  actual  events ;  to  forces  brought  into 
being  by  the  war,  and  to  their  influence  and  tendency, 
not  as  the  basis  for  "  prophecy  "  or  as  matters  of 
mere  academic  interest,  but  for  the  bearing  that  they 
have  upon  certain  definite  decisions  that  Americans 
will  shortly  be  called  upon  to  make,  answers  to  ques- 
tions which  cannot  be  shunned  or  avoided,  answers 
which  will  determine  in  large  part  the  character  of 
future  Am.erican  society. 

The  article  from  which  the  quotations  given  at 
the  head  of  this  chapter  are  taken,  goes  into  figures 
to  show  how  small  numerically  has  been  the  propor- 
tion of  Socialists  and  Radicals  in  the  American  la- 
bour movements  of  the  past,  and  implies  that  the  de- 
mands of  "  the  real  labour  movement  "  will  be  of  the 
same  character  after  the  war  that  they  have  been 
in  the  past,  because  American  labour  as  a  whole  can 
be  reckoned  as  immune  from  the  blandishments  of 
Socialists,  LW.W.'s,  "  Arthur  Hendersons  and 
Sidney  Webbs  " —  which  may  well  be  the  case. 

Emphasis  on  such  a  point  would  indicate  that  Mr. 
Easley  has  altogether  failed  to  take  cognizance  of 
the  forces  which  have  brought  into  politics  the  Col- 
lectivist  programmes  of  Europe.  The  growth  of 
radically  socializing  policies  throughout  the  world 
is  not  due  mainly  to  socialist  propaganda  or  the  influ- 

[38] 


ence  of  Socialists,  but  to  the  war-measures  oi  govern- 
ments, often  anti-socialist  in  opinion  and  intention. 

The  main  factors  of  change  in  America  are  most 
unlikely  to  be  Socialist  or  I.W.W.  doctrines  or 
propaganda.  At  best  these  last  would  merely  be 
the  expression  of  deeper  and  very  different  forces 
—  effects  rather  than  causes.  Changes  such  as  those 
which  have  already  come  in  England,  and  the  tenden- 
cies expressed  in  the  programme  of  the  Labour  Party, 
are  in  no  direct  sense  the  result  of  Socialist  advocacy, 
or  the  influence  of  the  relatively  tiny  Socialist  groups 
in  English  Labour.  The  strength  of  this  new  move- 
ment is  due  to  the  unintended  momentum  of  events; 
a  change  made  for  one  definite  purpose  is  found  to 
necessitate  other  changes  and  those  other  further 
ones,  until  the  nation  is  carried  far  beyond  its  original 
purpose.  It  is  the  case  of  the  mountain  climber 
whose  foot  releases  one  pebble,  which  releases  a 
boulder  which  releases  others,  and  brings  about  an 
avalanche,  carrying  away  half  the  mountain  side. 

The  American  government,  in  taking  over  the 
control  of  the  railroads,  had  in  mind  simply  and 
purely  a  war  need.  So  with  the  building  of  ships 
in  vast  numbers ;  with  the  control  of  the  distribution 
of  coal,  and  the  fixing  of  its  price ;  with  the  price  fix- 
ing of  other  commodities,  and  with  such  measures  as 
an  income  tax  that  goes  as  high  as  fifty  per  cent.  But 
though  these  are  war  measures,  can  anyone  doubt 
that  the  question  as  to  what  is  to  be  done  with  the 
merchant  ships  built  by  the  government  in  such 
quantity  as  to  make  this  country  the  greatest  ocean 
carrier  in  the  world,  the  future  scope  of  the  income 

[39] 


tax  and  the  public  control  of  coal  prices  —  that  such 
questions  will  raise  problems  that  will  change  the 
whole  character  of  political  programmes  in  the  fu- 
ture, and  that  "  socialistic  "  demands  will  occupy  in 
that  future  a  place  very  different  to  that  which  they 
have  occupied  in  the  past? 

Keeping  this  not  very  elusive  fact  in  mind,  the 
reader  will  find  it  perhaps  a  little  difficult  to  credit 
the  fact  that  in  forecasting  the  nature  of  the  demands 
to  be  made  by  American  labour  after  the  war,  and 
the  circumstances  that  will  bear  upon  it,  Mr,  Easley 
has  not  one  word  to  say  about  such  things  as  the  fu- 
ture of  the  railroads.  Not  one  word.  Presumably 
the  question  of  whether  the  roads  shall  return  to 
private  ownership  or  not,  will  not  particularly  con- 
cern between  two  and  three  million  railway  work- 
ers; the  powerful  farmers'  Leagues,  non-partisan 
and  others,  nor  their  political  affiliations,  nor  the 
programmes  of  the  political  parties  of  the  future. 

I  have  said  that  the  measures  prompted  by  the 
needs  of  war  have  already  brought  into  being  in 
America  certain  forces  or  tendencies  which  will  have 
the  very  greatest  bearing  upon  definite  decisions 
that  Americans  will  shortly  be  called  upon  to  make, 
answers  to  questions  which  cannot  be  shunned  or 
avoided.     Those  questions  include  the  following: 

(i)  Shall  the  railroads,  telegraphs  and 
canals  be  returned  to  private  ownership  and 
control,  or  retained  by  the  government?  Shall 
the  ships  now  being  manufactured  by  the  gov- 
ernment become  private  property  and  the  in- 
struments of  private  profit-making,  or  be  re- 
[40] 


tained  as  a  commercial  enterprise  of  the  nation? 

(2)  Shall  government  control  of  the  distri- 
bution of  coal  and  the  fixing  of  its  price,  to- 
gether with  a  measure  of  control  and  price  fix- 
ing in  such  things  as  wheat  and  certain  raw  ma- 
terials be  retained,  or  relinquished? 

(3)  Shall  war  time  government  insurance 
be  continued  and  carried  over  from  military  to 
civilian  occupations?  Shall  insurance,  in  fact, 
be  nationalized? 

(4)  What  shall  be  the  method  of  paying  the 
cost  of  the  war?  Shall  the  income  and  excess 
profit  tax  be  retained  and  extended  for  that  pur- 
pose? 

(5)  In  the  future  use  of  ships,  control  of 
raw  material,  and  the  use  of  pohtical  power  in 
undeveloped  countries,  shall  American  policy 
be  protectionist,  and  nationalist,  looking  to  the 
special  advantage  of  American  commercial  con- 
cerns, or  shall  it  aim  at  establishing  equality  of 
economic  opportunity  among  the  community  of 
nations? 

(6)  Shall  conscription  be  retained  and  the 
country  look  for  its  future  security  to  large  naval 
and  military  forces,  supporting  a  policy  under 
purely  national  control;  or  to  smaller  forces 
making  part  of  those  of  a  Society  of  Nations 
supporting  a  policy  in  some  measure  under  in- 
ternational control? 

The  more  that  these  questions  are  examined,  the 
more  will  it  be  realized  that  they  are  very  closely 
inter-related;  that  wise  decision  of  any  one  involves 

[41] 


some  degree  of  consideration  of  all  the  others;  and 
that  the  answers  given  will  determine  the  economic, 
social  and  political  future  in  America. 

I  will  anticipate  at  this  point  in  some  degree,  and 
ask  the  reader  to  consider,  in  the  light  of  these 
questions  shortly  to  be  presented  to  the  American 
electorate,  the  proposals  which  constitute  the  es- 
sence of  the  British  Labour  Party  Programme ;  and 
beg  him  to  ask  himself  whether,  just  because  those 
questions  will  arise,  it  is  not  inevitable  that  a  na- 
tional movement  in  America  should  sooner  or  later 
base  its  demands  upon  a  practically  similar  platform, 
and  whether  such  a  platform  would  not  gather  to 
itself  forces  which  are  at  bottom  as  strong  in  Ameri- 
can as  they  are  in  British  life. 

The  definite  measures  of  the  British  programme 
can  be  summarized  thus : 

The  immediate  national  ownership  of  rail- 
ways, canals,  lines  of  steamships,  mines  and  the 
production  of  electrical  power;  a  united  na- 
tional service  of  communication  and  transport 
with  a  steadily  increasing  participation  of  the 
organized  workers  in  the  management  both  cen- 
tral and  local;  the  whole  business  of  the  retail 
distribution  of  household  coal  being  undertaken 
as  a  local  public  service  by  the  elected  municipal 
or  county  councils;  prices  to  be  stabilized  as 
much  as  they  are  in  the  case  of  railroad  fares. 

Expropriation  of  profit-making  industrial  in- 
surance companies. 

The  present  system  of  the  centralized  pur- 
chase of  raw  material  and  of  "  rationing  "  by 
[42] 


joint  committees  of  the  trades  concerned;  of 
the  present  fixing,  for  standardized  products, 
of  maximum  prices  at  the  factory,  at  the  ware- 
house of  the  wholesale  trader  and  in  the  retail 
shop,  to  be  retained. 

For  raising  the  greater  part  of  the  revenue 
required,  the  Party  demands  the  direct  taxation 
of  incomes  above  the  necessary  cost  of  family 
maintenance ;  and,  for  the  requisite  effort  to  pay 
off  the  national  debt,  the  direct  taxation  of  pri- 
vate fortunes  both  during  life  and  at  death.  .  .  . 
The  income  tax  on  large  incomes  to  rise  to  six- 
teen and  even  nineteen  shillings  in  the  pound, 
(that  is  to  say  from  eighty  to  ninety-five  cents 
on  the  dollar)    .  .  .  The  Labour  Party  stands 
for  special  capital  levy  to  pay  off,  if  not  the 
whole,  a  very  substantial  part  of  the  entire  na- 
tional debt. 
That  is  indeed  an  extremely  radical  programme, 
and  represents  a  most  thorough-going  collectivism. 
But  when  we  remember  that  the  American  people  are 
already  in  collective  control  of  their  railroads  and 
telegraphs;  owners  of  what  may  shortly  be  the  larg- 
est mercantile  fleet  under  one  flag;  control  the  dis- 
tribution of  coal  and  other  necessaries,  and  fix  their 
prices,  are  associated  in  the  largest  insurance  opera- 
tions ever  undertaken,  have  put  into  operation  an 
income  tax  rising  already  to  over  fifty  per  cent,  in 
the  case  of  large  incomes;  and  when  we  remember 
that  America's  war  effort  is  not  yet  at  an  end;  that 
problems  of  demobilization  and  reconstruction  will 
occupy  the  country  certainly  for  several  years  after 

[43] 


the  close  of  the  war,  and  that  young  men  who  have 
been  for  several  years  in  contact  with  European  con- 
ditions will  form  an  influential  part  of  the  electorate, 
it  is  obvious  that  there  is  no  inherent  impossibility 
in  America's  duplicating  broadly  the  experience  of 
Great  Britain. 

One  point  particularly  should  be  clarified:  We 
are  dealing  here,  not  with  rival  prophecies,  with  an 
academic  speculation  as  to  "  what  will  take  place," 
as  we  might  speculate  whether  it  will  be  a  wet  or 
dry  summer,  but  with  the  very  practical  question 
of  what  we  are  going  to  do  in  a  matter  in  which 
we  must  do  either  one  thing  or  the  other.  The 
question  which  Americans  have  to  answer  is  not 
"What  do  you  think  will  happen?"  but  "What 
are  you  going  to  make  happen?  What  are  you  go- 
ing  to  DO?  Are  you  going  to  keep  the  ships  or  sell 
them?  Return  the  roads  or  retain  them?  "  Either 
involves  far  reaching  consequences.  We  are  faced, 
not  with  the  question  of  choosing  between  rival  dog- 
mas, but  of  deciding  between  alternative  courses  of 
action. 

Moreover  the  decisions  will  be  forced  upon  us 
however  much  we  might  wish  to  avoid  them.  The 
greatest  obstacle  of  the  social  innovator  or  reformer 
usually  is  inertia.  There  has  been  a  movement,  for 
instance,  for  years  in  America  for  the  nationalization 
of  the  railroads.  The  promoters  of  that  idea  might 
have  agitated  for  generations  and  failed  to  get  suf- 
ficient momentum  behind  their  movement  to  over- 
come the  inertia  of  the  established  and  familiar. 
But  the  step  of  temporary  nationalization  in  America 

[44] 


as  In  England,  was  taken  over  night.  The  body  is 
now  in  motion.  To  "  leave  it  alone  "  means  leav- 
ing it,  not  at  rest,  but  unguided.  The  decision  to 
make  no  change,  now  means  accepting  enormous 
changes.  This  is  the  kind  of  problem  that  cannot 
be  solved  by  leaving  it  alone;  we  cannot  escape  the 
decision.^ 

And  the  decisions  when  they  come  must  be  na- 
tional, not  state  or  local.  Action,  whatever  it  is, 
will  have  to  be  taken  by  the  Federal  Government. 
The  national  parties  must  therefore  concern  them- 
selves with  them.  And  that  itself  will  involve  a 
revolutionary  change.  It  will  involve  in  some  de- 
gree a  change  in  American  character,  the  temper  of 
American  politics. 

Heretofore  a  movement  like  Socialism  has  been 
alien  in  America ;  an  importation.  The  passion  of 
political  discussion  which  has  characterized  the  po- 
litical history  of  some  European  countries  will  no 
longer  be  so  foreign  to  American  soil. 

For  the  first  time  since  the  civil  war,  political  prin- 
ciples of  fundamental  import  will  be  presented  to 
the  American  democracy. 

In  passing  upon  the  question  as  to  whether  the 
government  shall  retain  or  return  the  roads,  hand 
over  the  ships  to  private  ownership  or  not,  abandon 

^  It  is  true  that  the  law  calls  for  the  return  of  the  railroads 
automatically  eighteen  months  after  the  cessation  of  the  war.  But 
the  conditions  of  that  return  —  rolling  stock,  common  use  of  ter- 
minals—  will  raise  questions  involving  the  whole  problem  of 
nationalization.  Mr.  McAdoo  has  recently  announced  that  the  Gov- 
ernment is  studying  a  great  national  plan  for  the  electrification  of 
all  the  American  railroads:  the  supply  of  power  from  Federal 
hydro-electric  stations.  It  is  a  further  link  in  the  chain  of  nation- 
alization. 

[45] 


the  coal  control,  or  not,  retain  the  Income  tax,  and 
extend  it  as  the  method  of  paying  for  the  war,  or 
resort  to  further  bonding,  perpetuate  conscription 
on  the  present  scale  or  not,  Americans  will  be  de- 
ciding not  merely  a  detached  detail  of  legislation 
but  principles  far  more  important  in  their  effect  upon 
the  daily  lives  of  the  majority  of  the  people  than 
would  be  a  decision  as  between,  say,  a  monarchy  and 
a  republic.  For  the  control  of  the  railroads,  for  in- 
stance, involves  the  control,  through  rates,  of  the 
whole  industrial  life  of  the  country;  the  future 
method  of  financing  the  war  in  its  whole  financial 
framework;  the  question  of  continued  price-control 
in  such  things  as  coal  and  wheat,  the  economic  stand- 
ard of  life  among  the  people;  the  future  of  the 
ships  now  being  built,  its  foreign  commercial  policy, 
and,  taken  in  conjunction  with  such  things  as  the 
future  military  force  of  the  country  its  whole  re- 
lationship to  the  world  at  large, —  the  choice  be- 
tween a  future  of  nationalist  commercial  imperial- 
ism or  international  co-partnery  in  a  Society  of 
Nations.  These  questions  are  all  in  large  degree 
inter-related  and  involve  nothing  less  than  the  ques- 
tion of  the  socialization  of  wealth;  the  social  revolu- 
tion which  must  now  follow  the  industrial  revolution; 
the  future  of  the  institution  of  private  property,  and 
of  the  old  sovereign  and  independent  state.  Will 
America  stand  for  the  perpetuation  of  economic  in- 
dividualism and  the  old  world  of  rival  nationalisms, 
tending,  in  the  case  of  great  states  to  imperialisms? 
Or  will  she  set  about  that  re-shaping  of  the  industrial 
system  at  home  and  the  international  system  abroad, 

[46] 


which  the  Labour  Parties  in  Europe  are  already  de- 
manding? 

For  nearly  fifty  years  now  —  as  Lord  Bryce  has 
pointed  out  —  American  parties,  unlike  most  Euro- 
pean political  parties,  have  not  been  divided  on 
questions  of  principle,  if  we  except  possibly  Free 
Trade,  and  Bi-metallism.  The  contests  have  been 
over  persons,  or  spoils,  or  mere  inherited  prefer- 
ences for  rival  organizations.  A  man  belonged  to 
one  party  rather  than  to  the  other  as  he  might  join 
the  Independent  Order  of  Foresters  instead  of  the 
Masons;  or  be  an  Elk  instead  of  a  Buffalo.  And 
he  would  have  a  sense  of  good-natured  triumph  if 
his  Order  instead  of  a  rival  Order  captured  the  gov- 
ernment. But  as  to  deep  principles  for  which  a 
man  would  die.  .  .  .  Sometimes  the  Republicans 
have  been  the  Conservatives  as  against  the  Reforming 
Democrats;  sometimes  the  roles  have  been  changed. 
At  bottom  there  is  no  distinction  of  political  prin- 
ciple. Nobody  could  tell  you  which  Party  stands 
for  the  estabhshed  order,  and  which  against.  Of 
recent  years  the  Republicans  are  supposed  to  have 
stood  for  "  big  business  "  but  that  is  accidental. 

The  tendency  has  been  fortified  by  the  position  of 
the  State  Legislature.  Industrial  legislation  —  fac- 
tory regulation,  for  instance  —  has  been  in  the  past 
generally  the  affair  of  the  separate  states.  And 
that  has  made  such  questions  local  and  geographical. 
And  so  complex  is  the  machine  that  political  action 
for  social  or  industrial  ends  is  mainly  a  matter  of 
elaborate  caucus  organization. 

Under  the  influence  of  alLthese  forces  the  political 
[47] 


parties  have  tended  to  become,  in  part  purely  pro- 
fessional organizations,  in  part  semi-social,  semi- 
charitable  clubs  or  friendly  societies,  which  can  hope, 
during  at  least  half  the  time,  to  support  their  officials 
at  the  public  expense. 

The  whole  has  resulted  in  making  the  American 
elector  little  interested  in  political  principles  —  in 
what  Mr.  Easley  would  probably  call  "  theories." 
That  sort  of  discussion  has  been  left  to  the  for- 
eigners. It  is  one  reason  why  the  "  Political  "  Trade 
Unions  in  America  have  been  mainly  foreign. 

It  was  a  happy  circumstance  for  America ;  it  was 
part  of  the  general  prosperity  and  success  of  this 
country  —  one  of  the  things  which  marked  her  off 
from  the  old  world,  this  fact  that  she  did  not  have 
to  take  politics  very  seriously  and  that  her  people 
did  not  get  excited  over  pohtical  philosophies. 

But  the  day  has  gone  when  she  can  consider  her- 
self above  and  beyond  concern  with  the  pohtical  pas- 
sions that  disturb  the  rest  of  the  world.  She  too, 
has  become  part  of  them.  Who  could  have  fore- 
told five  years  ago  that  an  assassination  by  an  ob- 
scure Serbian  agitator  in  a  remote  Bosnian  town 
would  result  in  raising  the  question  of  the  future 
of  American  railroads,  the  income  tax  which  Ameri- 
cans shall  pay,  the  drinks  which  they  shall  drink? 
Would  cause  vast  American  armies  to  cross  the  seas 
and  thousands  of  young  Americans  to  give  up  their 
lives?  There  is  not  an  American  mother  uncon- 
cerned with  the  future  of  Serbia  and  Bohemia;  the 
happiness  of  their  populations  will  directly  affect  the 
live3  of  her  children  —  Serbian  unhappiness  indeed 

^48] 


has  cost  the  lives  of  very  many  American  citizens. 
It  may  be  that  there  will  continue  to  operate  in 
American  society,  factors  militating  against  the  de- 
velopment of  political  mindedness.  In  that  case 
the  effective  solution  of  American  problems  will 
be  retarded.  A  more  hopeful  anticipation  is  that 
the  necessity  will  stimulate  the  development  of  the 
needed  qualities.  In  that  case  the  time  will  come 
when  political  philosophies,  problems  of  socialism, 
syndicalism,  of  nationality,  will  be  as  earnestly  de- 
bated here  as  in  Europe;  when  Americans  will  take 
their  politics  as  seriously  as  do  Europeans.  To 
assume  that  the  American  workman  will  consent  to 
leave  these  political  questions  to  the  "  high  brows," 
Is  not  only  to  disparage  his  Intelligence  as  a  self-gov- 
erning citizen,  but  to  deny  the  reality  of  America's 
democracy.  And  this  keener  and  more  vivid  Interest 
and  concern  of  the  American  workman  in  large  po- 
litical principles  will  mark  the  end  of  "  pure  and 
simple  trade  unionism  "  as  similar  forces  marked 
its  end  In  Europe. 


[49] 


PART  II 

BRITISH  LABOUR  PROGRAMMES  AND 
THE  FORCES  BEHIND  THEM 


CHAPTER    I 

WHAT   IS   THE   BRITISH    LABOUR   PARTY? 

Historical  outline  of  the  Party;  its  constituent  elements. 
Its  position  in  the  ebb  and  flow  of  present  party  reorganiza- 
tion in  England.  The  general  question  of  political  action 
by  trade-union  forces  in  England.  The  gradual  disappear- 
ance of  "  absolute  "  socialism  in  Europe,  and  the  substitution 
for  cast  iron  dogmas  a  general  socializing  tendency  in  radical 
political  programmes.  Socialism  and  Democracy;  "Social- 
ism versus  the  State."  French  syndicalism,  British  guild 
socialism,  Bolshevism,  and  impossibilism  in  Labour  politics. 
The  English  Parliamentary  system  and  comparison  with  the 
American  Constitution. 

The  British  Labour  Party  was,  until  just  recently 
a  Federation,  consisting  of  Trade  Unions,  the  "  In- 
dependent Labour  Party,"  the  Fabian  Society,  the 
Woman's  Labour  League,  a  few  co-operative  soci- 
eties and  a  number  of  Trades  Councils  and  local 
Labour  Parties.  It  was  an  outgrowth  of  the  non- 
political  Trade  Union  movement,  and  was  brought 
into  existence  as  the  result  of  a  resolution  of  the 
Trade  Union  Congress  of  1899  which  directed  a 
committee  to  "  devise  ways  and  means  of  securing 
an  increased  number  of  Labour  members  In  Parlia- 
ment." ^  A  year  later  a  distinct  Labour  Group  came 

1  As  early  as  1868,  which  year  saw  the  passing  of  the  Reform 
Act  which  enfranchised  the  workmen  in  the  Boroughs,  a  movement 

[53] 


into  existence  in  Parliament,  on  independent  lines, 
with  its  own  whips  and  its  own  policy. 

The  group  steadily  increased  in  numbers.  After 
the  general  election  of  19 lo  the  Labour  Group  num- 
bered forty-two  in  the  House  of  Commons,  and  were 
consequently  on  a  narrow  division  by  no  means  a 
negligible  quantity.  But  it  was  not  yet  a  national 
political  party  capable  of  challenging  the  two  great 
historic  parties  on  their  own  ground.  Not  a  party 
at  all  in  the  accepted  sense  of  the  word.  It  was  still 
a  mere  Federation  of  Labour  and  Socialist  Societies. 
"  As  the  war  wore  on,"  writes  Mr.  Arthur  Hender- 
son, its  present  Secretary  and  virtual  political  leader, 
in  recounting  its  most  recent  developments,  "  we  were 
led  to  see  that  if  Labour  is  to  take  its  part  in  creating 
the  new  order  of  Society,  it  must  address  itself  to  the 
task,  of  transforming  its  political  organization  from 
a  federation  of  societies  into  a  national  popular 
party,  rooted  in  the  life  of  the  democracy,  and  de- 
riving its  principles  and  its  policy  from  the  new 
political  consciousness." 

That  task  of  reconstruction  and  re-organization  is 
not  yet  completed,  but  its  main  principles  are  already 
pretty  clearly  indicated.     Mr.  Henderson  says: 

"  The  outline  of  the  new  party  constitution  is  now 
familiar  to  every  attentive  reader  of  the  newspapers. 
It  contemplates  the  creation  of  a  national  democratic 
party,    founded   upon   the   organized   working-class 

was  started  to  secure  the  return  of  Trade  Union  members  to 
Parliament.  In  1874  fourteen  candidates  went  to  the  poll,  but 
only  two  were  returned.  In  1895  the  number  had  reached  twelve- 
It  was  not  until  1903  that  the  candidates  of  the  Labor  Represen- 
tation Committee  obtained  any  notable  success  at  the  polls. 

[54] 


movement,  and  open  to  every  worker  who  labours  by 
hand  or  brain.  Under  this  scheme  the  Labour 
Party  will  be  transformed,  quickly  and  quietly  from 
a  federation  of  societies,  national  and  local,  into  a 
nation-wide  political  organization  with  branches  in 
every  parliamentary  constituency,  in  which  members 
will  be  enrolled  both  as  workers  and  as  citizens, 
whether  they  be  men  or  women,  and  whether  they 
belong  to  any  trade  union  or  socialist  society  or 
are  unattached  democrats  with  no  acknowledged  al^ 
legiance  to  any  industrial  or  political  movement 
We  are  casting  the  net  wide  because  we  realize  that 
real  political  democracy  cannot  be  organized  on 
the  basis  of  class  interest.  Retaining  the  support  of 
the  affiliated  societies,  both  national  and  local,  from 
which  it  derives  its  weight  and  its  fighting  funds,  the 
Labour  Party  leaves  them  with  their  voting  power 
and  right  of  representation  in  its  councils  unimt 
paired;  but  in  order  that  the  party  may  more  faith- 
fully reflect  constituency  opinion  it  is  also  proposed 
to  create  in  every  constituency  something  more  than 
the  existing  trades  council  or  local  labour  party.  It 
is  proposed  to  multiply  the  local  organizations  and 
to  open  them  to  individual  men  and  women,  both 
hand-workers  and  brain-workers,  who  accept  the 
party  constitution  and  agree  with  its  aims.  The 
Individually  enrolled  members  will  have,  like  the 
national  societies,  their  own  representatives  in  the 
party's  councils,  and  we  confidently  believe  that  year 
by  year  their  influence  will  deepen  and  extend.  The 
weakness  of  the  old  constitution  was  that  it  placed 
the  centre  of  gravity  in  the  national  society  and 

[55] 


not  In  the  constituency  organization:  It  did  not  en- 
able the  individual  voter  to  get  into  touch  with  the 
party  (except  in  one  or  two  isolated  cases,  like  that 
of  Woolwich  or  Barnard  Castle)  except  through  the 
trade  union,  the  socialist  society  or  the  co-operative 
society.  The  new  constitution  emphasizes  the  im- 
portance of  the  individual  voter.  It  says  to  the  man 
and  woman  who  have  lost  or  never  had  sympathy 
with  the  orthodox  parties,  *  You  have  the  oppor- 
tunity now  not  merely  of  voting  for  Labour  repre- 
sentatives in  Parliament,  but  of  joining  the  party  and 
helping  to  mould  its  policy  and  shape  its  future.'  " 

The  British  Labour  movement  in  Its  industrial, 
political  and  co-operative  aspects,  is  an  exceedingly 
complex  group  of  organizations,  and  might  seem  to 
the  outsider  a  bewildering  tangle  of  interlocking 
groups.  But  although  it  has  grown  haphazardly 
and  experimentally  it  has  far  more  cohesion  than 
appears  on  the  surface,  and  certain  tendencies  are 
constant  and  unmistakable.  And  perhaps  the  most 
constant  and  unmistakable  of  all  Is  the  development 
away  from  "  pure  Trade  Unionism  "  to  wider  so- 
cial and  political  activities,  a  development  towards 
what,  for  want  of  a  better  term,  must  be  called  a 
Socialist  policy  —  though  the  characteristic  of  the 
party  is  its  absence  of  doctrinal  emphasis  and  Its 
reliance  instead,  upon  a  wise  eclecticism  and  the  ap- 
peal of  measures  rather  than  doctrines.  Yet  the 
growth  of  the  Socialist  inspiration  is  unmistakable. 
In  the  twenty  years  which  elapsed  between  the  elec- 
tion of  the  first  labour  candidate  to  Parliament 
(1874)   and  the  creation  of  the  Independent  La- 

[56] 


hour  Party  (a  definitely  Socialist  organization)  the 
Social  propagandists  seemed  to  be  condemned  po- 
litically to  utter  futility.^  No  one  today  can  ques- 
tion the  immense  influence  in  British  Labour  politics 
of  the  work  that  has  been  carried  on  by  the  Fabian 
Society  ^  and  the  I.  L.  P. —  and  the  influence  of  the 
personalities  that  have  come  out  of  those  organiza- 
tions. 

It  must  not  be  assumed  that  the  Labour  Party 
represents  the  entire  Trades  Union  movement  of 
Great  Britain.^     It  is  possible  indeed  that  that  move- 

1  In  1885  the  old  Social  Democratic  Federation  ran  two  parlia- 
mentary candidates;  one  received  twenty-nine  votes,  and  the  other, 
thirty-two ! 

2  The  Fabian  Society  consists  of  so-called  middle-class  intellectual 
Socialists,  among  its  distingushed  members  past  and  present  being 
George  Bernard  Shaw,  H.  G.  Wells  (since  resigned),  Sidney 
Webb,  Annie  Besant,  Sir  Sidney  Olivier  and  Graham  Wallas. 
The  "  basis  "  of  this  society  defines  its  aim  as  "  the  reorganization 
of  Society  by  the  emancipation  of  land  and  industrial  capital  from 
individual  and  class  ownership  and  the  vesting  of  them  in  the 
community  for  the  general  benefit.  .  .  .  Industrial  inventions  and 
the  transformation  of  surplus  income  into  capital  have  mainly 
enriched  the  proprietary  class,  the  working  class  being  now  de- 
pendent upon  that  class  for  leave  to  earn  a  living."  The  Fabian 
Society's  method  has  been  called  "  the  policy  of  permeation,"  be- 
cause it  urges  its  members  to  use  whatever  influence  they  possess 
in  any  circles  whatsoever  to  promote  Socialist  opinions  and  to 
induce  action  in  the  direction  of  Socialism.  The  work  of  the 
society  has  been  more  in  the  direction  of  research  and  dissemina- 
tion of  exact  knowledge  than  of  widespread  propaganda. 

3  The  total  number  of  separate  trade  unions  in  the  United  King- 
dom at  the  end  of  1914  was  1,123  vvith  a  total  membership  of 
3,959,863.  The  growth  of  membership  has  been  very  steady.  In 
1899  the  number  was  1,860,913;  in  1907  it  had  increased  to  2,- 
425,153;  and  in  1911  to  3,081,903.  Apart  from  the  Trade  Union 
Congress  and  the  Labour  Party  which  is  a  mixed  federation  com- 
posed of  trade  unions  and  socialist  bodies,  united  for  a  special 
political  purpose,  and  those  locaJ  labour  parties  and  trade  coun- 
cils, which,  though  federal  in  structure,  have  special  functions  of 
their  own,  there  are  about  119  federations,  of  which  one-third  are 
local,  and  in  addition  numerous  joint  committees  and  working 
agreements  serving  to  link  up  the  sections  of  the  industrial  move- 
ment.   The   General   Federation   of  Trade   Unions  is  one  of  the 

[57] 


ment  will  split  over  certain  planks  in  tlie  recently 
sanctioned  programme.  All  English  parties  are  in. 
a  molten  state  and  it  is  too  early  yet  to  see  what,  in 
the  way  of  permanent  organization,  will  come  from 
the  new  casting. 

"  If  the  war  has  almost  abolished  Liberalism  and 
changed  the  face  of  Toryism,  it  has  split  the  old 
Labour  Party  into  fragments,"  says  one  observer.^ 
A  portion  has  followed  Mr.  George.  Another  part 
has  been  absorbed  into  the  work  of  war  administra- 
tion. A  third  has  formed  what  is  known  as  "  The 
British  Workers'  League."  At  present  writing  this 
last  can  hardly  be  taken  seriously  and  it  is  regarded 
with  avowed  suspicion  by  the  mass  of  the  workmen. 
"  Who  finds  the  funds  for  its  ample  propaganda  ?  " 
asks  the  London  Nation.  "The  Trade  Unions? 
Hardly.  And  what  explains  the  ready  hospitality 
of  the  Times  and  the  support  which  the  League 
clearly  obtains  in  powerful  circles  of  capitalism?^ 
The    motive    is    avowed.     The    British    Workers' 

119  federations  mentioned  above,  as  well  as  such  organizations 
as  the  Miners  Federation  of  Great  Britain,  the  Federation  of  En- 
gineering and  Shipbuilding  Trades,  the  Textile  Federations,  the 
General  Laborers  National  Council,  and  the  National  Joint  Com- 
mittee of  Postal  Telegraph  Associations.  Trades  Councils  are 
local  federations  of  trade  union  branches.  They  number  273  with 
1,523,274  members.  Their  activities  are  political  as  well  as  in- 
dustrial and  they  work  in  close  association  with  the  local  labour 
parties.  In  certain  counties  and  groups  of  counties  there  are 
federations  of  trade  councils. 

1  London  Nation,  July  6,  1918. 

2  See  a  series  of  extracts  published  in  The  Herald  (London)  of 
November  17,  1917,  from  the  secret  suggestions  of  a  body  of  em- 
ployers who  asked  their  friends  to  give  their  support,  among  other 
"outside  bodies,"  to  "The  British  Workers'  League"  and  the 
"  Women's  Social  and  Political  Union,"  on  the  ground  that  they 
were  organizing  "  counter  propaganda,  from  various  points  of 
view,  against  the  revolutionary  tendencies  in  British  industry." 

[58J 


League  is  regarded  as  a  counter-revolutionary  body. 
Its  merit  in  the  eyes  of  the  powerful  men  who  watch 
and  would  mould  the  new  order  in  the  interests  of 
capital  is  that  it  rejects  Free  Trade,  and  adopts  the 
programme  of  the  Paris  Conference.  A  further 
reason  for  treating  it  as  a  friend  is  that  it  proposes 
to  replace  the  class-war  by  a  minimum  wage  and 
the  abolition  of  restriction  of  output.  Here,  then, 
the  driving  power  of  the  new  capitalism  has  been 
found.  In  exchange  for  a  guarantee  of  high  wages, 
the  workmen's  leaders  are  expected  to  take  their 
hand  off  the  regulator.  The  industrial  problem  will 
thus  have  been  solved.  For  the  rest,  the  League  and 
its  affinity,  the  Merchant  Seamen's  League,  are  for 
the  war  after  war.  The  latter  calls  for  the  boycott 
of  German  goods  and  German  ships." 

The  observation  is  cited  for  what  it  is  worth. 
The  same  authority  regards  the  Labour  Party 
proper — "the  medium  party  of  Mr.  Webb  and 
Mr.  Henderson  "  as  virtually  "  the  old  trade  union- 
ism, coupled  with  a  formal  admission  of  the  brain- 
worker  into  its  councils  and  candidatures,  a  definite 
Parliamentary  policy,  and  a  somewhat  less  definite 
programme  of  Webbian  *  reconstruction.'  Its  chief 
novelty  is  the  development  of  the  old  Fabian  tactic 
of  permeating  the  middle-classes  with  moderate  col- 
lectivism." 

In  order  to  appreciate  the  relation  of  the  new 
party  to  such  forces  as  the  older  non-political  Trade 
Unionism,  the  older  Socialism  and  the  newer  Syndi- 
calism, and  to  estimate  its  probable  political  scope, 
American  observers  should  keep  in  mind  particularly 

[59] 


certain   essential    differences   between    the   political 

systems  of  the  United  States  and  of  England,  and 

certain  recent  developments  of  Socialist  theory  and 

practice.     Particularly  is  that  necessary  in  view  of 

the  character  of  criticism  voiced  quite  frankly  by 

Mr.  Samuel  Gompers  and  his  associates.^     Their 

chief  criticism  might  perhaps  be  summarized  thus: 

( I )   The  effective   action  of  labour  in  the 

future  will  be  through  economic  and  industrial, 

not   political   means.      (This   is   ground  upon 

which  a  narrow  capitalism,  "  pure  and  simple  " 

^  Mr.  Gompers  writes  of  the  Reconstruction  Report  of  the  Labor 
Party  Sub-Committee  in  The  American  Federationist  for  April, 
1918: 

"  The  first  striking  contrast  of  fundamental  importance  is  that 
-he  British  proposal  deals  with  Labor's  achievements  in  the  future 
wholly  in  political  terms.  The  problems  are  formulated  as  politi- 
cal issues  and  the  agency  designated  is  the  political  party.  In 
England  the  Labor  Party  seeks  a  wider  field  of  activity,  even 
domination  of  the  labour  movement.  In  the  United  States  condi- 
tions are  different.  Labor's  welfare  and  protection  is  regarded 
as  fundamentally  an  economic  problem  to  be  dealt  with  by  eco- 
nomic agencies." 

Mr.  Gompers  goes  on  to  point  out  that  the  American  labour 
movement  has  always  rejected  all  attempts  by  the  "intellectuals" 
to  dominate  the  movement,  and  asserts  that  "  American  labour 
resents  the  invidious  distinction  implied  in  the  phrase  used  in  the 
British  document,  '  hand  or  brain  workers.' "  And  in  conclusion 
he  finds  "  little  practical  help  for  real  achievements.  In  the  future, 
as  in  the  past,  we  must  trust  to  the  economic  organization  of  the 
workers.  Whatever  glorious  reconstruction  ideal  may  be  painted 
by  any  word-brush,  it  can  have  reality  only  through  achievements 
by  those  who  with  hands  and  brains  do  the  actual  work  of  pro- 
duction." 

One  commentator  points  out  that  an  uninformed  person  might 
conclude  from  this  that  Mr.  Gompers  was  one  of  those  Radical 
Laborites  who  shunned  association  with  any  but  wage  earners  and 
who  placed  all  his  reliance  on  the  strike  —  a  labour  leader,  in  fact, 
of  the  syndicalist  school.  Yet  Mr.  Gompers'  legislative  agents 
work  actively  for  Workmen's  Compensation  Acts,  eight-hour  bills, 
and  anti-child-labour  bills,  and  against  prohibition.  And  several 
powerful  State  Federations  belonging  to  the  American  Federation 
are  working  actively  for  health  insurance  by  the  State,  although 
in  this  he  withholds  his  approval. 

[60] 


trade  unionism,  and  a  type  of  dogmatic  syndi- 
calism can  meet.) 

(2)  "Intellectuals,"  brain  workers,  are  not 
of  the  working  class  properly  speaking,  and 
they  do  not  understand  its  spirit;  they  are  mis- 
representative  politicians,  not  working  men. 

(3)  In  the  social  field  the  pursuit  of  Uto- 
pias defeats  the  efforts  at  real  improvement; 
as  witness  Bolshevism  in  Russia.  The  chaos 
which  always  follows  the  attempt  to  put  Utopian 
programmes  into  effect  will  destroy  confidence 
in  such  organizations  as  the  British  Labour 
Party. 

Those  points  will  be  dealt  with  seriatim  in  due 
course. 

To  understand  in  any  due  degree  the  significance 
of  the  recent  European  movements,  we  must  note 
the  developments  of  Socialist  theory  in  recent  years. 

It  is  indicative  of  a  good  deal  that  in  six  books 
dealing  with  the  Labour  problem  and  published  in 
America  during  the  last  two  years,  to  which  the 
present  writer  happened  to  turn  for  light  on  the 
American  attitude  towards  Guild  Socialism  and  Syn- 
dicalism, there  is  not  one  word  about  either  move- 
ment —  at  least  the  indices  do  not  contain  a  hint 
of  the  discussion  of  either  —  although  industrial 
unionism,  and  a  powerful  movement  hardly  distin- 
guishable from  continental  syndicalism,  have  been 
for  several  years  an  important  part  of  the  problem 
of  labour  in  the  United  States,  and  although  technical 
Socialist  literature  in  America  has  dealt  with  the 
matter  at  some  length. 

[61] 


Would  it  be  an  exaggeration  to  say  that  perhaps 
nine  Americans  out  of  ten,  outside  of  certain  labour 
unions  and  the  Socialist  Party,  would  today  be  unable 
to  say  what  Syndicalism  is;  how  it  differs  from 
Marxian  Socialism,  or  from  Guild  Socialism?  The 
fact  gives  a  hint  of  the  extent  to  which  great  masses 
in  a  country  like  the  United  States  may  be  completely 
ignorant  of  movements  going  on  in  their  midst, 
movements  destined  perhaps  to  have  most  revolu- 
tionary results.  It  indicates  the  extent  of  the  truth 
already  touched  upon,  that  the  discussion  of  political 
and  social  principles  in  the  United  States  is  not  a 
general  interest  of  the  population.  In  America  So- 
cialism and  its  growth  and  development  is  an  affair 
of  the  Socialists.  In  Europe  it  has  become  the  affair 
of  the  whole  people  —  even  though  the  policies  and 
measures  discussed  may  not  be  called  Socialism. 

"  Socialism  "  to  most  non-Socialist  Americans  still 
connotes,  perhaps,  what  Mr.  Walter  Weyl,  in  his 
illuminating  treatise  on  "  The  New  Democracy  "  ^ 
calls  "  absolute  socialism  " —  the  Socialism  of  eco- 
nomic fatalism,  the  class  struggle,  the  "  inevitable 
crisis  "  and  "  surplus  value  "  of  Karl  Marx.  That 
"  absolute  Socialism  "  is  not  the  Socialism  which  ex- 
ercises political  influence  in  Europe,  (save  in  Rus- 
sia). It  is  not  the  Socialism  of  the  British  Labour 
Party  Programme.  It  is  not,  in  fact,  the  Socialism 
of  the  German  Social  Democracy,  and  incidentally, 
perhaps  it  is  not  the  Socialism  of  the  American  So- 
cialist Party,  which  in  recent  years  has  shown  an  in- 
creasing Fabianism  and  a  tendency  to  leave  "  abso- 

^  Macmillans,  1912. 

[62] 


lute  "  Socialism  to  the  much  less  considerable  Social- 
ist Labour  Party. ^ 

Just  because  of  the  fact  that  discussion  of  political 
theory  is  not  widespread  among  the  people  of  the 
United  States,  general  public  opinion  in  such  matters 
is  likely  to  be  "  behind  the  times  "  and  still  thinks 
of  Socialism  in  the  terms  of  the  iron-clad  doctrine 
of  Marx  —  or  his  older  interpreters.  That  doctrine 
included  not  only  an  economic  fatalism  which  re- 
garded the  destruction  of  the  capitalist  system  as  in- 
evitable, apart  from  the  human  will,  but  a  theory 
of  a  '*  crisis  "  and  "  class  struggle  "  by  which  the 
great  revolution  was  to  come.  The  outstanding 
characteristic  of  the  "  hard  shell  "  Socialist  of  that 
earlier  type  was  his  opposition  to  bourgeois  reform 
as  tending  to  postpone  the  "  inevitable  "  cataclysm. 
All  attempts  at  economic  legislation  were  to  be  post- 
poned until  a  Socialist  majority  should  have  given 
the  proletariat  complete  control.  Thus  "  the  plat- 
form of  the  Socialist  Labour  Party  contains  no  im- 
mediate demands,  and  in  the  Socialist  Party  a  member 
of  the  National  Committee  has  declared  '  We  can 
shove  the  whole  reform  sentiment  out  of  the  party 
and  be  the  better  for  it.'  "  ^ 

1  In  his  introduction  to  Miss  Jessie  Hughan's  "  American  Social- 
ism of  the  Present  Day,"  Mr.  John  Spargo  says  the  book  "  brings 
into  bold  relief  the  fact  that  .  .  .  the  movement  is  undoubtedly 
losing  its  dogmatic  and  sectarian  character  —  imposed  upon  it 
quite  naturally  and  unintentionally,  by  the  German  exiles  who 
first  propagated  the  teachings  of  Marx  in  this  country." 

2  Quoted  by  Miss  Hughan  in  "  American  Socialism  of  the  Present 
Day"  (p.  172),  as  indicative  of  the  older  t>^pe.  She  says:  "The 
extreme  interpretation  has  never  characterized  Marxism,  Marx  and 
Engels  declaring  as  far  back  as  the  Manifesto  that  '  the  social 
scum'  is  less  fit  to  take  part  in  the  social  revolution  than  to  become 
the  tool  of  reactionary  intrigue."     It  would  perhaps  be  truer  to 

[63] 


That  earlier  doctrine  of  "  absolute  Socialism  " 
claimed  for  the  working  man  the  full  product  of 
Labour.  "  Anything  less,  however  little  less,"  says 
Mr.  Weyl,  interpreting  this  doctrine,  "  was  exploita- 
tion. Exploitation,  however,  could  not  be  little. 
The  share  of  capital  tended  to  absorb  the  whole 
product  of  labour  above  a  despicable  subsistence 
wage.  It  was  not  the  employer's  fault, —  he  was 
as  much  in  the  grip  of  a  system  as  the  least  of  his 
employes." 

For  the  sake  of  his  profits  the  manufacturer  must 
allow  his  workmen  to  survive.  For  the  overturn 
of  capitalism  nothing  but  this  survival  was  necessary. 
"  Since  private  ownership  of  the  means  of  production 
led  automatically  to  increasing  misery,  oppression, 
servitude,  degradation,  and  exploitation,  it  followed, 
even  without  other  assumptions,  that  private  prop- 
erty must  be  expropriated  and  converted  into  public 
property."  Such  a  philosophy  of  wholesale  ex- 
propriation would,  it  was  foreseen,  antagonize  all 
property  owners,  including  traders,  and  farmers  or 
peasants.  But,  it  was  assumed,  the  automatic  prog- 
ress of  industry  would  expropriate  these  "  rapidly 
sinking "  middle  classes,  who  would  then,  instinc- 
tively, join  hands  with  other  proletarians.  "  Finally 
the  proletariat  would  come  to  represent  practically 
all  of  society,  and  would  be  aligned  against  a  '  com- 
paratively small  number  of  capitalists  and  great 
landowners.'  When  that  time  came  the  capitalistic 
system  with  all  its  exploitations  and  disharmonies 

say  that  while  it  may  not  have  characterized  Marx  it  has  char- 
acterized much  Marxism. 

[64] 


would  cease,  and  a  new  era  would  be  born,  In  which 
economic,  political  and  social  organization  could  be 
based  on  the  common  ownership  of  the  means  of 
production,  and  economic  justice  and  human  dignity 
would  be  attained." 

Such  broadly  was  the  theory  of  the  class  war,  and 
the  crisis.  It  was  simple,  absolute,  and  had  all  the 
appeal  of  a  religious  doctrine. 

But  it  is  no  longer  accepted  in  Europe  by  any 
powerful  group,  outside  the  Russian  Bolsheviks,^  if 
even  by  them.  The  Socialists  of  the  country  that 
nursed  it  have  rallied  to  the  "  Revisionists  "  and 
the  "  Opportunists."  "  Today,"  says  Mr.  Weyl, 
"  men  who  were  formerly  convinced  are  escaping 
from  the  obsession  of  this  imposing  theory  .  .  . 
learning  to  interpret  otherwise  the  vast  democratic 
re-organization  of  society  which  Marx  foresaw." 
The  theory  that  Socialists  should  not  co-operate  in 
any  preliminary  betterment  of  the  workman's  lot 
which  involved  any  temporary  recognition  of  the 
"  capitalistic  order  "  has  been  all  but  universally 
abandoned  by  organized  Socialism  in  England, 
France,  Germany,  Italy,  and  the  lesser  European 
states.  Almost  everywhere  Socialist  parties  have 
co-operated  in  legislation,  looking  to  the  regulation 
of  factory  conditions,  to  the  limitation  of  the  la- 
bour of  women  and  children,  to  the  protection  of 
life,  limb  and  the  health  of  workers :  to  facilitating 
the  recovery  of  damages  in  case  of  injury  or  death; 

1 "  Some  of  our  socialist  comrades,"  said  Jauris,  in  1912,  "  inter- 
pret the  class  war  in  a  sense  much  too  simple,  one-sided  and 
abstract."  According  to  Sarraute  the  class  war  is  not  "  an  abso- 
lute abstract  principle  absorbing  the  whole  life  of  Society." 

[65] 


to  compulsory  state  Insurance  against  old  age,  sick- 
ness, accident,  invalidity,  and  even  unemployment; 
to  improved  educational  facilities,  housing  reform, 
enlarged  franchise,  protection  of  trade  union  rights. 

"  Socialists,"  says  Mr.  Hillquit,  "  attach  the 
greatest  importance  to  all  reforms  of  this  character. 
They  realize  that  the  task  of  transforming  the  mod- 
ern capitalist  society  into  a  Socialist  commonwealth, 
can  be  accomplished  only  by  the  conscious,  systematic, 
and  persevering  efforts  of  working  class  physically, 
mentally  and  morally  fit  for  the  assumption  of  the 
reins  of  government,  and  not  by  a  blind  revolt  of  a 
furious  and  desperate  rabble."  ^ 

But  "  absolute  socialism  "  has  been  modified  in  re- 
cent years  in  another  way.  Most  modern  socialist 
writers  realize  that  not  all  wealth  used  in  the  pro- 
duction of  other  wealth  is  capital,  subject  to  collec- 
tive ownership.  Working  Socialism  does  not  pro- 
pose, even  ultimately,  the  expropriation  of  such 
"  means  of  production  "  as  the  needle  or  the  spade. 
Even  Kautsky,  pure  Marxian  though  he  be,  assures 
the  small  farmer  that  he  is  not  to  be  molested  in 
the  independent  working,  and  even  ownership  of  his 
land.*     And  agriculture  is  not  the  only  field  in  which 

1 "  Socialism  in  Theory  and  Practice,"  p.  124. 

*  The  division  of  thought  in  Socialist  rants  may  be  gathered 
from  the  following  bit  of  the  history  of  Socialism  in  America 
recorded  by  Miss  Hughan:  "The  1908  programme  of  the  Socialist 
Party  included  no  specific  agricultural  reforms,  devoting  only  a 
phrase  to  the  present  exploited  condition  of  the  small  farmer,  and 
embraced  in  its  immediate  demands  the  collective  ownership  of  all 
land.  Within  a  year,  however,  an  amendment  to  the  platform  was 
passed  by  national  referendum  which  marks  a  turning  point  in 
American  Socialism.  By  this  amendment  the  words,  '  and  all  land,' 
■were  struck  out  from  the  demands  and  the  following  inserted  in  the 
sections  on  General  Principles: 

[66] 


modern  socialism  expects  the  continuance  of  much 
private  production.  "  Marxians  are  agreed  upon 
the  needlessness  of  interference  with  the  non-exploit- 
ing mechanic  or  tradesman,  and  the  only  dispute  in 
the  matter  between  the  orthodox  and  the  Revision- 
ist is  as  to  the  prospect  of  the  automatic  disappear- 
ance of  these  small  industries  under  the  pressure  of 
centralized  competition,  be  the  latter  capitalist  or 
socialist  in  nature.  The  divergence  of  present-day 
Socialism  on  this  point  from  the  complete  collectiv- 
ization of  Bellamy  is  indicated  by  the  fact  that  a 
party  speaker  stated  recently  to  a  large  gathering  of 
the  rank  and  file  his  belief  that  in  the  coming  com- 
monwealth only  50  or  60  per  cent,  of  the  means  of 
production  would  be  socialized."  ^ 

But  not  only  has  the  movement  represented  by  the 
British  Labour  Party  given  no  sanction  to  the  narrow 
political  theologies  which  marked  certain  phases  of 

"  '  There  can  be  no  absolute  private  title  to  land.  All  private 
titles,  whether  called  fee  simple  or  otherwise,  are  and  must  be 
subordinate  to  the  public  title.  The  Socialist  Party  strives  to 
prevent  land  from  being  used  for  the  purpose  of  exploitation  and 
speculation.  It  demands  the  collective  possession,  control,  or  man- 
agement of  land  to  whatever  extent  may  be  necessary  to  attain 
that  end.  It  is  not  opposed  to  the  occupation  and  possession  of 
land  by  those  using  it  in  a  useful  and  bona  fide  manner  without 
exploitation.'  " 

Needless  to  say,  the  passing  of  this  declaration  has  aroused  great 
antagonism  among  those  party  members  who  cling  to  the  inter- 
pretation of  the  class  struggle  as  excluding  the  independent  worker, 
and  to  the  expectation  of  automatic  concentration  in  all  industry. 
The  rival  Socialist  Labor  Party,  which  still  demands  in  its  plat- 
form the  public  ownership  of  the  land  and  all  means  of  production, 
hailed  with  joy  this  proof  of  the  "  middle-class  "  character  of  the 
Socialist  Party,  and  gave  great  publicity  to  the  secession  of  a  ward 
branch  in  Denver  on  the  ground  of  the  part}'  decision  "  to  drop 
Socialism  from  its  platform  and  adopt  in  its  stead  an  emasculated 
form  of  the  late  lamented  Single  Tax." 

1  Miss  Hughaa,  "  American  Socialism,"  p.  135. 

[67J 


Marxian  Socialism.  It  Is  realized  that  the  mere  ab- 
sorption of  industries  by  the  state  —  the  institution 
of  state  monopolies  —  is  not  Socialism;  that  a 
bureaucratic  State  Socialism  such  as  is  conceived  by 
some  members  of  the  English  Fabian  Society  might 
well  produce  a  servile  community  in  which  the  worker 
would  be  the  wage  slave  of  a  state  official  instead  of 
a  capitalist.  This  has  recently  been  emphatically 
voiced  by  M.  Emile  Vandervelde,  the  distinguished 
Belgian  Socialist  and  President  of  the  International 
Socialist  Bureau,  in  a  book  which  he  has  entitled  "  Le 
Soclalisme  contre  I'fitat,"  the  object  of  which  is  to 
combat  the  fallacy,  shared,  as  he  says  by  many  So- 
cialists, or  persons  claiming  that  title,  that  Socialism 
is  identical  with  "  fitatisme."  He  has  no  difficulty 
in  showing  that  even  the  Socialism  of  Marx  and 
Engels  was  far  from  being  etatiste  in  the  accepted 
sense,  since  it  aimed  at  the  abolition  of  the  state  as 
we  know  it.  They  never  supposed  that  a  state 
monopoly  was  Socialism.  Many  of  their  followers 
have  even  opposed  all  state  monopolies  as  dangerous 
to  the  proletariat,  on  the  ground  that  they  paralyse 
the  action  of  the  working  class  and  strengthen  the 
bourgeoisie.  M.  Vandervelde  points  out  the  danger, 
for  instance,  which  would  arise  if  the  employes  of 
the  state  are  prevented  from  organizing  themselves 
and  are  deprived  of  the  right  to  strike.  The  notion 
that  Socialism  can  be  brought  about  by  the  gradual 
absorption  of  production  by  the  state  or  the  muni- 
cipalities —  that,  for  instance,  the  municipalization 
of  the  gas  or  water  is  a  step  toward  State  Socialism 

[68] 


—  Is  a  delusion.*  To  this  conception,  that  of  the 
organization  of  labour  by  the  state,  Socialism  prop- 
erly so-called  opposes  that  of  the  organization  of 
labour  by  the  workers  themselves,  grouped  in  vast 
associations  independent  of  government.  Vander- 
velde  points  out  that  State  control  of  industry  for 
the  purposes  of  the  war  has  greatly  diminished  the 
liberty  of  the  workmen  and  hampered  their  collective 

1  State  Socialism  has  no  necessary  connection  either  with  de- 
mocracy or  with  Socialism.  It  is  true  that  if  a  so-called  State 
Socialist  policy  is  so  undemocratic  as  that  of  Bismarck,  we  may 
decide,  on  strict  examination,  that  it  is  not  State  Socialism  at  all, 
but  merely  the  ancient  use  of  the  State  for  the  purpose  of  the 
ruling  classes.  On  the  other  hand,  if  those  ruling  classes  feel 
sufficiently  secure  in  the  control  of  the  State  they  may  systematically 
increase  its  industrial  functions  and  its  control  over  industry  with- 
out demanding  any  direct  or  immediate  profit  to  their  private  in- 
dustrial enterprises,  i.  e.,  the)'  may  adopt  a  genuine  State  Socialist 
policy.  They  may  feel  sufficiently  secure  in  other  special  privileges 
offered  to  them  by  the  State,  such  as  subsidized  educational  oppor- 
tunities beyond  the  economic  reach  of  the  masses  or  even  of  lower 
middle  class  (except  in  relatively  rare  instances),  followed  by  ad- 
mission to  the  enormous  and  varied  Civil  Service,  which  is  open 
to  those  who  have  secured  such  educational  privileges.  Educa- 
tional privileges  may  automatically  be  granted,  the  most  expensive 
being  practically  open  only  to  the  well-to-do  classes,  while  the  next 
most  expensive  are  almost  exclusively  open  to  the  upper  middle 
classes,  etc. 

On  the  other  hand,  a  so-called  State  Socialist  policy  under  the 
control  of  a  democratic  government  consisting  of  small  private 
producers,  such  as  that  of  New  Zealand,  may  be  used  chiefly  as  a 
means  of  subsidizing  these  small  producers  at  the  expense  of  the 
State  and  other  social  classes;  this,  of  course,  would  mean  that 
this  "  State  Socialism "  was  being  used  in  order  to  increase  the 
relative  strength  of  private  as  compared  with  governmental  in- 
dustry. But  again,  the  same  policy  of  extending  the  economic 
functions  of  the  government  carried  out  by  the  same  State  Socialism, 
for  the  small  producers  might  feel  that  they  were  in  sufficiently 
secure  control  of  the  government  and  that  their  economic  status 
was  sufficiently  certain  so  that  a  satisfactory  major  share  in  the 
benefits  of  government  industry  would  come  to  them  automatically 
without  any  subsidy,  even  in  the  most  indirect  form,  for  it  might 
be  their  belief  that  the  offices  and  other  emoluments  of  the  State 
would  fall  largelv  into  their  hands.  "State  Socialism,"  Walling 
and  Laidler,  pp.  XXIV-XXV. 

[69] 


action  and  it  might  easily  be  used  to  reduce  them  to 
complete  subserviency  and  to  make  efforts  at 
economic  emancipation  more  difficult  than  ever.  In- 
deed M.  Vandervelde  seems  to  go  so  far  as  to  leave 
the  impression  that  the  workers  should  aim  at  the  con- 
quest of  political  power,  so  as  to  obtain  control  of 
the  state  in  order  to  get  rid  of  it.  For  the  "  gov- 
ernment of  men "  Socialism  would  substitute  the 
"  administration  of  things."  But  M.  Vandervelde 
shows  that  the  conquest  of  political  power  alone  will 
not  be  sufficient.  He  devotes  much  space  in  his  work 
to  exposing  the  failure  of  political  democracy  and 
of  the  parliamentary  system.  It  is,  perhaps,  as 
one  critic  points  out,  a  wholesome  corrective  to  the 
notion  that  if  Germany  would  only  adopt  the  system 
of  a  government  responsible  to  a  parliament,  all 
would  be  well.  In  fact,  as  Id.  Vandervelde  shows, 
the  people  have  very  little  more  effective  influence 
on  the  government  in  the  countries  called  democratic 
than  in  the  others.  Perhaps,  as  M.  Vandervelde 
says,  no  country  in  the  world  is  so  completely  dom- 
inated by  the  financial  interests  as  France,  which  has, 
in  form,  the  institutions  most  nearly  democratic  of 
all  the  great  nations,  not  excepting  the  United 
States.^ 

^  It  is  significant  in  this  connection  that  the  French  labour  union 
movement  is  distinguished  from  those  of  all  other  nations  in  that 
it  is  mainly  syndicalistic.  This  kind  of  labour  union,  which  was 
created  in  France,  and  found  active  support  in  the  southern  nations 
of  Europe,  Italy,  Spain  and  Portugal,  has  in  the  past  minimized 
the  importance  of  a  strongly  disciplined  and  centralized  organi- 
zation, and  placed  its  main  emphasis  on  the  readiness  to  strike. 
It  avoids  centralization  wherever  possible,  discourages  great  union 
funds  and  sees  in  the  general  strike  the  real  weapon  of  the  work- 
ing-class.   It  either  directly  opposes  or  at  least  neglects  political 

[70] 


It  is  altogether  outside  the  scope  of  this  book  to 
give  anything  like  an  exhaustive  analysis  of  the  newer 
sociahst  development  as  embodied  in  Syndicalism  and 
Guild  Socialism,  if  only  because  the  proposals  for 
which  they  stand  are  still  fluid  and  Indefinite  —  as 
indeed  are  the  principles  upon  which  the  proposals 
are  based. 

The  reader  may  be  referred  to  the  already  con- 
siderable literature  of  Industrial  Unionism  and 
Guild  Socialism.  The  theories  of  both  movements 
have  contributed  to  the  forces  that  have  helped  to 
give  the  Labour  Party  its  programme.  They  have 
this  much  in  common :  The  belief  that  the  main  unit 
of  government  should  be,  not  that  organization  of  the 
whole  community  which  we  have  known  in  the  past 
as  *'  the  state,"  but  the  workers'  organizations,  the 
Unions.  Syndicalism  ("Syndicat"  is  merely  the 
French  word  for  Trade  Union)  says  in  effect: 
"  Let  the  Trade  Unions  run  the  country."  Guild 
Socialism  says  more  nearly:  "Let  the  Unions  run 
the  industry  of  the  country,"  recognizing  that  a 
country  is  made  up  not  only  of  producers  but 
consumers,  not  only  of  carpenters  and  bankers, 
railroad  men  and  dentists,  but  also  of  men  and 
women. 

Industrial  unionism  Is  familiar  to  readers  in  the 

action  as  unimportant.  The  central  organization  of  the  French 
labour  unions  is  the  General  Confederation  of  Labor  with  600,000 
members  who  are  grouped  into  a  number  of  national  Federations, 
for  the  most  part  almost  entirely  in  organizations  based  upon  the 
industrial  form  of  organization.  Just  before  the  war  there  was  a 
tendency  toward  greater  centralization,  toward  higher  dues  and 
systematic  support  of  the  strikers.  More  and  more,  the  desire  to 
emulate,  to  a  degree  at  least,  the  German  form  of  organization 
had  found  expression. 

[71] 


United  States,  mainly  as  represented  by  the  I.  W.  W.^ 
Its  doctrine  generally  is  strictly  proletarian,  preach- 
ing Marxian  economics  and  the  class-war  and  de- 
manding the  complete  abolition  of  the  state,  which 
it  regards  as  a  capitalist  institution  destined  to  dis- 
appear with  the  capitalist  system.  "  All  power  to 
the  Soviets  "  represents  not  only  its  method  but  its 
ideal.  "  Here  it  is  sharply  differentiated  from  the 
guild  socialist  view,"  says  Mr.  G.  D.  H.  Cole,  the 

1  Miss  Jessie  Wallace  Hughan,  the  well-known  authority  on  the 
history  of  American  Socialism,  points  out  very  truly  that  Industrial 
Unionism,  the  narrower  activities  of  the  I.  W.  W.  and  Syndicalism, 
are  all  often  confused  in  the  public  mind,  owing  partly  to  the 
frankly  indefinite  membership  of  the  American  syndicalist  organi- 
zations, partly  to  the  vagueness  attached  to  any  new  movement, 
and  partly  to  the  almost  synonymous  character  of  the  words  them- 
selves. "  It  may  be  borne  in  mind,  however,  that  industrial  union- 
ism embraces  all  upholders  of  the  industrial  as  against  the  craft 
union,  whether  revolutionists  or  otherwise,  and  includes  the  ma- 
jority of  Socialists  as  well  as  certain  branches  of  the  A.  F.  of  L., 
such  as  the  United  Mine  W^orkers.  Syndicalism  refers  to  the  con- 
tinental movement,  founded  indeed  upon  the  industrial  union,  but 
making  this  the  basis  of  a  complete  revolutionary  philosophy  and 
tactics  directed  toward  the  overthrow  of  capitalism.  The  I.  W.  V^., 
prominently  before  the  American  public  as  representing  the  in- 
dustrial union  and  the  more  radical  Syndicalist  movement,  is  a 
somewhat  loosely  organized  national  union,  whose  leaders  are 
deeply  impregnated  with  Syndicalist  ideals,  but  whose  rank  and 
file  consist  largely  of  unskilled  and  alien  workers  brought  together 
by  the  industrial  union  policies  of  low  fees,  short  strikes,  and 
welcome  to  all  workers." 

Syndicalism,  as  has  been  said,  is  based  upon  the  industrial  union, 
with  its  accompanying  features  of  local  groups,  mass  action  and 
the  inclusion  of  both  skilled  and  unskilled  workers.  It  is  revolu- 
tionary not  alone  in  demanding  the  abolition  of  the  wage  system, 
but  also  in  constituting  itself  the  instrument  for  its  overthrow. 
Where  the  old  style  union  works  for  fair  treatment  by  the  capi- 
talist, and  the  Socialist  strives  for  the  ousting  of  the  capitalist  by 
political  means,  the  Syndicalist  expects  the  union  itself  to  conquer 
industry  and  inaugurate  the  new  commonwealth  unaided.  In  this 
coming  society,  according  to  the  Syndicalist  ideal,  the  political  state 
will  have  disappeared,  and  the  sole  government  will  be  that  of 
the  industrial  unions  themselves,  conducting  production  in  their 
several  fields  according  to  the  will  of  the  workers,  and  loosely 
subordinate  only  to  the  general  industrial  organization. 

[72] 


recognized  authority  on  Guild  Socialism.  "  The 
national  guildmen  agree  with  the  industrial  union- 
ists in  demanding  the  direct  management  of  Industry 
by  the  workers  —  by  hand  or  brain  —  who  are  em- 
ployed In  it;  and  they  agree  further  in  regarding  the 
possession  of  economic  power  as  the  essential  key 
to  the  possession  of  political  power.  They  seek, 
however,  not  the  abolition  but  the  democratization 
of  the  state."  Both  represent  attempts  to  arrive 
at  a  more  real  democracy.  More  important  to  the 
worker  than  the  right  to  determine  those  things  in- 
cluded in  "  politics  "  are  the  conditions  of  his  own 
daily  occupation,  his  right  to  have  a  part  In  the 
government  of  that  phase  of  his  life  connected  with 
his  work.  He  knows  little,  it  may  be,  of  the  "  high 
politics"  of  his  national  government;  and  half  the 
time  he  must  vote  blindly,  without  real  knowledge. 
But  he  knows  a  great  deal  about  the  conditions  in 
his  workshop;  he  can  vote  on  questions  of  wages, 
hours,  management,  supervision,  workshop  rights, 
with  the  knowledge  of  an  expert.  He  is  near  to  all 
that.  The  national  government  Is  far  away.  Un- 
der political  democracy  he  Is  permitted  to  meddle 
with  the  things  that  are  remote  from  him.  In- 
dustrial democracy  as  expressed  In  Syndicalism  or 
Guild  Socialism  would  give  him  control  in  the  things 
that  are  near  to  him,  by  a  machinery  which  he  him- 
self has  In  large  part  created,  and  with  which  he  is 
familiar. 

Not  only  Is  this  sound  democracy,  it  is  sound  psy- 
chology as  applied  to  the  problem  of  labour.  Some 
such  device  may  help  to  satisfy  what  we  have  now 

[73] 


come  to  realize  as  one  of  the  necessaries  of  a  full 
life:  the  worker's  interest  in  his  task,  and  his  satis- 
faction of  the  creative  instinct.  To  make  the  factory 
or  the  Union  truly  the  worker's,  by  giving  him  re- 
sponsibility therein,  to  make  it  his,  to  give  him  the 
interest  of  creation  and  control,  is  to  satisfy  a  real 
human  need. 

Miss  Helen  Marot,  who  has  written  so  sugges- 
tively on  "  The  Creative  Impulse  in  Industry," 
points  out  very  truly  that  it  was  never  more  appar- 
ent than  it  is  now,  that  an  increase  in  a  wage  rate 
is  a  temporary  expedient  and  that  wage  rewards  are 
not  efficient  media  for  securing  sustained  interest  in 
productive  enterprise.  *'  It  is  becoming  obvious  that 
the  wage  system  has  not  the  qualifications  for  the 
co-ordination  of  industrial  life.  As  the  needs  of  the 
nations  under  the  pressure  of  war  have  brought  out 
the  inefficiencies  of  the  economic  institution,  it  has 
become  sufficiently  clear  to  those  responsible  for  the 
conduct  of  the  war  and  to  large  sections  of  the 
civil  population,  that  wealth  exploitation  and  wealth 
creation  are  not  synonymous;  that  the  production  of 
wealth  must  rest  on  other  motives  than  the  desire  of 
individuals  to  get  as  much  and  give  as  little  as  par- 
ticular situations  will  stand." 

The  shop-steward  movement  in  England  is,  as 
the  title  suggests,  an  evidence  of  the  trend  of  things 
towards  the  self-government  of  the  workers.  This 
movement  is  essentially  an  effort  of  the  men  In  the 
workshops  to  assume  responsibility  In  industrial  re-- 
construction  after  the  war,  a  responsibility  which 
they  have  heretofore  delegated  to  representatives 

[74] 


not  connected  directly  with  the  shop  production. 
Miss  Marot's  view  as  to  the  general  American  at- 
titude to  similar  tendencies  on  the  part  of  Labour  in 
this  country,  is  worth  parenthetical  quotation  in  this 
connection.     She  says : 

The  evidence  of  the  desire  on  the  part  of  the  labour  force 
to  participate  in  the  development  of  production  is  the  factor 
we  should  keep  in  mind  in  any  plans  for  democratic  indus- 
trial reconstruction.  It  is  inevitable  that  an  effort  to  open 
up  and  cultivate  this  desire  of  labour  will  be  regarded  by 
the  present  governing  forces  with  apprehension.  The  move- 
ment of  labour  in  this  direction  is  now  looked  upon  with 
suspicion  even  by  people  who  are  not  in  a  position  of  con- 
trol. The  general  run  of  people  in  fact  outside  of  those 
who  recognize  labour  as  a  fundamental  force  in  industrial 
reconstruction,  conceive  of  the  labour  people  as  an  irrespon- 
sible mass  of  men  and  view  their  movements  as  expressions 
of  an  irresponsible  desire  to  seize  responsibility.  They  are 
the  men  who  are  not  experienced  in  business  affairs  and  there- 
fore cannot,  it  is  believed,  be  trusted.  The  arguments  against 
trusting  them  are  the  same  old  arguments  advanced  for 
many  centuries  against  inroads  on  the  established  order  of 
over-lordship.  But  over-lordship  has  flourished  at  all  times, 
and  in  the  present  scheme  of  industry  it  flourishes  as  it  always 
has,  in  proportion  to  the  reluctance  of  the  people  to  partici- 
pate as  responsible  factors  in  matters  of  common  concern. 
Corruption  and  exploitation  of  governments  and  of  industry 
are  dependent  upon  the  broadest  possible  participation  of  a 
whole  people  in  the  experience  and  responsibilities  of  their 
common  life.  It  is  for  this  reason  that  we  need  to  foster 
and  develop  the  opportunity  as  well  as  the  desire  for  respon- 
sibility among  the  common  people. 

After  the  war,  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  America  will  under- 
take to  realize  through  its  schemes  for  reconstruction  its 
present  ideals  of  self-government.  As  it  does  this,  we  shall 
discover    that    the    issues    which    are    of    significance    to 

[75] 


democracy  are  of  significance  to  education;  for  democracy 
and  education  are  processes  concerned  with  the  people's  abil- 
ity to  solve  their  problems  through  their  experience  in  solving 
them.  If  America  is  ever  to  realize  its  concept  of  political 
democracy,  it  can  accept  neither  the  autocratic  method  of 
business  management  nor  the  bureaucratic  schemes  of  state 
socialism.  It  cannot  realize  political  democracy  until  it 
realizes  in  a  large  measure  the  democratic  administration  of 
industry.^ 

But  it  will  be  noted  that  the  British  Labour  Party 
both  implicitly  and  explicitly  gives  no  sanction  to  the 
revolutionary  theories  which  would  discard  alto- 
gether the  "  bourgeois  "  method  of  political  action 
through  existing  machinery.  One  may  doubt  indeed 
whether  Syndicalism,  a  la  Sorel,  has  ever  had  much 
influence  in  England.  It  is  true  that  the  emergence 
of  the  Labour  party  as  a  real  force  in  1906  was 
shortly  followed  by  a  period  of  political  disillusion- 
ment. Finding  that  forty  Labour  Members  in  the 
House  of  Commons  could  not  change  the  situation 
materially  In  a  few  years,  the  opinion  of  Labour 
swung  back  towards  industrial  action,  and  the  strike 
weapon,  almost  discarded  by  many  unions  In  the 
early  years  of  the  century,  was  resumed  with  new 
vigour.  This  tendency  was  greatly  stimulated  from 
19 10  onwards  by  the  growing  hostility  of  Labour  to 
the  Industrial  policy  of  the  Liberal  government,  par- 
ticularly as  expressed  In  the  Insurance  act  and  the 
personality  of  Mr.  Lloyd  George.  The  shipyard 
movement  of  19 10,  the  transport  strikes  of   191 1, 

i"The  Creative  Impulse  in  Industry,"  E.  P.  Dutton  &  Co.  It 
may  be  pointed  out  that  Miss  Marot  seems  rather  to  ignore  the 
proposals  of  political  socialism  which  profess  to  avoid  the  dangers 
of  inefficiency  on  the  one  hand  and  State  Socialism  on  the  other. 

[76] 


the  miners*  strike  of  19 12,  the  famous  Dublin  dis- 
pute of  1913-14,  followed  in  quick  succession;  and, 
on  the  outbreak  of  war,  not  only  was  a  great  struggle 
in  the  building  industry  just  drawing  to  a  close,  but 
still  more  serious  trouble  was  threatened  in  the  mines, 
on  the  railways,  and  in  the  engineering  and  other 
industries.  Out  of  that  situation  arose  a  new  spirit. 
National  guilds,  or  guild  socialism,  on  the  one  hand, 
and  industrial  unionism  on  the  other,  are  both  bodies 
expressing  it  in  different  ways  and  attempting  to  give 
to  it  a  more  definite  direction  and  a  more  conscious 
ideal.  "  Both  command  only  a  very  limited  num- 
ber of  absolute  adherents "  declares  Mr.  Cole. 
"  There  is  a  growing  mass  of  opinion  in  the  trade 
union  world  which  is  neither  Guild  Socialist,  nor  in- 
dustrial unionist  in  the  strict  sense,  but  is  solving 
many  of  the  same  problems  in  the  same  way." 

We  see  that  here  too,  the  popular  forces  which 
constitute  the  power  of  the  British  Labour  Party, 
show  the  same  discerning  pragmatism  and  eclecti- 
cism which  they  have  shown,  in  reference  to  earlier 
socialist  doctrine.  Just  as  the  disregard  of  the 
dogma  of  absolute  socialism  by  the  Labour  Party  as 
a  party  did  not  prevent  co-operation  of  British  So- 
cialists therewith,  and  just  as  the  latter  have  realized 
that  the  mere  absorption  of  industries  by  the  state 
is  not  socialism,  so  also  have  they  realized  that 
though,  as  the  Syndicalists  claim,  the  conquest  of 
political  power  will  not  of  itself  suffice  to  give  a  real 
economic  freedom  to  the  mass,  neither  will  the  mere 
grouping  of  labour  in  vast  associations  independent 
of  government  or  aiming  at  the  destruction  of  the 

[77] 


political  state  prove  anything  but  futile.  A  work- 
able policy,  here,  as  so  often,  depends  upon  making 
the  due  distinction  between  what  is  necessary,  and 
what  is  enough,  between  the  indispensable  and  the 
sufficient.  Because  the  organization  of  labour  by 
the  workers  themselves  apart  from  mere  political 
democracy  is  indispensable,  it  has  by  some  theorists 
been  regarded  as  the  sole  means  of  effective  working 
class  action.  Because  political  action  of  itself  is  in- 
effective, it  has  been  concluded  that  it  may  safely  be 
dispensed  with.^ 

1  The  disparagement  of  political  action  seems  to  have  led  certain 
French  Socialists  to  violent  opposition  to  democracy  itself.  Thus 
M.  Sorel  (not  perhaps  illogically)  has  recently  developed  into  an 
advocate  of  the  restoration  of  the  monarchy  in  France,  and  has 
joined  in  the  establishment  of  a  royalist  newspaper. 

Sorel  is  bitter  in  his  criticism  of  democracy;  it  is,  in  his  view, 
the  regime  par  excellence  in  which  men  are  governed  "  by  the 
magical  power  of  high-sounding  words  rather  than  by  ideas;  by 
formulas  rather  than  by  reasons ;  by  dogmas  the  origin  of  which 
nobody  cares  to  find  out,  rather  than  by  doctrines  based  on  obser- 
vation." It  is  the  kingdom  of  the  professionals  of  politics,  over 
whom  the  people  can  have  no  control.  Sorel  thinks  that  even  the 
spread  of  knowledge  does  not  render  the  masses  more  capable  of 
choosing  and  of  supervising  their  so-called  representatives  and  that 
the  further  society  advances  in  the  path  of  democracy,  the  less 
effective  does  control  by  the  people  become. 

Mr.  Levine,  in  his  "Labor  Movement  in  France"  (pp.  141-6), 
writes:  "  M.  Sorel  having  started  out  with  Marx  winds  up  with 
Bergson.  The  attempt  to  connect  his  views  with  the  philosophy  of 
Bergson  has  been  made  by  M.  Sorel  in  all  his  later  works.  But 
all  along  M.  Sorel  claims  to  be  'true  to  the  spirit  of  Marx'  and 
tries  to  prove  this  by  various  quotations  from  the  works  of  Marx. 
It  is  doubtful,  however,  whether  there  is  an  affinity  between  the 
'spirit'  of  Marx  and  that  of  Professor  Bergson.  It  appears  rather 
that  M.  Sorel  has  tacitly  assumed  this  affinity  because  he  interprets 
the  '  spirit '  of  Marx  in  a  peculiar  and  arbitrary  way." 

M.  Sorel  is  expressly  not  "true  to  the  spirit"  of  Marx  in  this 
point.  "  Science  has  no  way  of  foreseeing,"  says  he.  His  works 
are  full  of  diatribes  against  the  pretension  of  science  to  explain 
everything.  He  attributes  a  large  role  to  the  unclear,  to  the  sub- 
conscious and  to  the  mystical  in  all  social  phenomena.  A  sentence 
like  the  following  may  serve  to  illustrate  this  point.  Says  M. 
Sorel :    "  Socialism  is  necessarily  a  very  obscure  thing,  because  it 

[78J 


It  is  true  that  there  has  been  of  late,  in  certain 
schools  of  political  thought  in  Europe,  much  dispar- 
agement of  Parliamentary  government,  which  is  de- 
clared to  have  had  its  day  in  France  if  not  in  Eng- 
land. In  this  condemnation  the  Syndicalist  joins 
hands  with  the  reactionary  Royalist.  (Sometimes, 
the  two  are  combined  in  the  same  person  as  in  the  case 
of  M.  Sorel). 

That  parliamentarism  has  become  a  very  inef- 
fective political  instrument  is  true,  but  the  alterna- 
tive is  neither  a  return  to  royal  autocracy  nor  the 
substitution  of  a  new  kind  of  "  class  "  government 
for  the  older  one.  Trade  Unions,  as  the  representa- 
tives of  the  special  interests  of  producers,  without 
reference  to  the  interest  of  the  whole  as  consumers, 
cannot  of  themselves  constitute  a  workable  state. 
But  their  role  in  the  state  is  indispensable,  and  the 
genesis  of  Parliamentary  government  and  its  devel- 
opment gives  a  hint  as  to  what  that  role  should  be. 

Parliamentary  government  arose  and  was  per- 
petuated in  England  as  an  attempt  to  balance  powers 
in  the  state:  the  power  of  the  barons  as  against  the 
king;  and,  later,  of  the  burghers  as  against  the 
landed  interest.  When  the  social  and  economic 
organism  was  relatively  simple  —  when  a  country 
gentleman  of  decent  feelings,  really  could  speak  com- 
petently for  the  interests  of  his  county  —  the  device 

treats  of  production  —  that  is,  of  what  is  most  mysterious  in  human 
activity  —  and  because  it  proposes  to  realize  a  radical  transfor- 
mation in  this  region  which  it  is  impossible  to  describe  with  the 
clearness  which  is  found  in  the  superficial  regions  of  the  world. 
No  effort  of  thought,  no  progress  of  knowledge,  no  reasonable  in- 
duction will  ever  be  able  to  dispel  the  mystery  which  envelops 
Socialism." 

[79] 


worked  fairly  well.  But  the  industrial  revolution 
with  its  elaboration  of  railroad  regulations,  banking 
and  currency  laws,  factory  and  insurance  acts,  has 
made  legislation  an  infinitely  complex  business,  and  a 
Parliament  as  developed  in  England  has  become  an 
"  incompetent  "  body  in  both  the  English  and  the 
French  sense  of  that  term.  The  fox-hunting  country 
gentleman  trying  conscientiously  to  find  his  way 
through  the  intricacies  of  banking  and  currency  laws, 
railroad  and  insurance  regulation,  is  simply  a  pa- 
thetic spectacle.  The  need  is  not  mainly  now  for  a 
balance  of  powers  in  the  state,  but  for  technical  com- 
petence, for  knowledge  of  how  to  make  the  complex 
machine  of  society  work  efficiently.  The  possession 
of  mere  power  by  any  party  will  not  suffice.  The 
Russian  Soviets  may  possess  the  power  in  Russia,  but 
not  the  knowledge  to  start  the  industrial  machine 
to  work  once  more.  You  may  have  "  power  "  over 
your  automobile  or  your  watch  in  the  sense  that  with 
a  crow-bar  you  could  smash  them  utterly  to  pieces. 
But  the  power  to  do  that  will  not  make  them  work. 
That  is  a  fact  too  much  neglected  by  those  who  strive 
for  the  capture  of  power  in  the  modern  state. 

The  line  of  advance  is  not  to  abolish  parliaments 
or  deliberative  or  representative  assemblies  in  favour 
of  autocratic  or  bureaucratic  organs,  but  to  see  that 
those  assemblies  are  more  truly  representative  and 
competent.  This  they  cannot  be  until  they  include 
technical  and  occupational  representation.  The  rep- 
resentative basis  of  our  assemblies  must  not  only  be 
geographical   areas,   but  trades,   industries,  profes- 

[80] 


slons;  we  must  vote  not  only  as  men  and  women  but 
also  as  farmers,  railway  men,  teachers,  doctors. 
This  fact,  it  will  be  noted,  is  recognized  in  the  pro- 
gramme described  later  in  these  pages. 

It  is  not  intended  to  imply  that  the  re-organized 
Labour  Party  will  not  meet  opposition  in  its  pro- 
gramme of  re-organization.  Most  assuredly  it  will. 
Changes  of  this  character  are  bound  to  meet,  within 
the  ranks  of  an  organization  like  the  British  Labour 
movement,  the  resistance  of  both  inertia  and  vested 
interest.  Every  old  and  well  established  organiza- 
tion tends  to  come  under  the  control  of  elderly  men, 
guided  above  all  by  long  habit;  of  a  fixed  and  some- 
what inflexible  outlook,  instinctively  resenting  the 
intrusion  of  new  blood  and  new  methods  —  and 
younger  men. 

It  happened  once  to  the  present  writer  to  hear  a 
very  influential  and  powerful  American  Labour 
leader  of  the  older  school  make  an  elaborate  plea 
for  opposition  to  the  newer  tendencies.  Most  obvi- 
ously, however,  the  avowed  motives  were  not  the 
real  motives.  Just  here  and  there  in  a  moment  of 
irritation  the  deeper  impulse  revealed  itself.  If  he 
could  have  discarded  the  more  rationalized  case  for 
his  opposition  and  come  to  the  real  ground,  I  think 
his  speech  would  have  run  something  like  this: 

I  and  my  colleagues  have  been  for  thirty  years  leaders  of 
great  Trade  Union  organizations  —  working  men,  leaders 
of  working  men.  We  have  fought  for  better  wages  and 
shorter  hours  and  we  have  got  them.  We  belong  to  your 
class  and  we  know  your  feelings.     We  have  not  given  you 

[8i] 


high  brow  stuff  about  a  new  social  order;  we  have  given  you 
more  money  and  better  conditions.  You  have  given  us  great 
authority  and  we  have  used  it  to  your  advantage.  We  have 
understood  one  another  and  we  have  built  up  great  organiza- 
tions which  are  yours,  and  belong  to  your  class.  Now  along 
come  college  bred  socialists  that  don't  belong  to  the  working 
class  order,  talking  about  a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth  — 
education,  marriage  reform,  the  endowment  of  motherhood, 
old  age  pensions,  heaven  knows  what.  And  we  have  got  to 
become  politicians  and  intellectuals,  instead  of  sticking  to  the 
old  well  tried  lines.  That  is  all  unfamiliar  ground  to  us, 
and,  if  we  enter  on  it,  it  will  be  the  end  of  the  old  system 
which  has  given  us  autocratic  power  in  great  organizations 
and  you  high  wages.  Have  no  truck  with  such  new  fangled 
notions,  but  stick  to  the  leaders  who  have  served  you  so  well 
during  a  generation  and  to  the  organizations  that  you  have 
built  up  from  your  own  class  —  of  working  men,  jor  work- 
ing men. 

Such  was  in  fact  the  essence  of  a  very  frank  ap- 
peal. The  heads  of  powerful,  wealthy,  well-organ- 
ized and  successful  bodies  would  be  more  than  hu- 
man if  they  were  not  actuated  in  some  degree  at  least 
by  the  motive  which  such  appeals  reveal. 

But  they  cannot  in  the  long  run  be  successful. 
Every  day  narrows  the  gulf  between  the  "  intellec- 
tual "  and  the  labourer,  between  the  hand  worker 
and  the  brain  worker.  The  professions  are  as  much 
the  proletariat  as  the  Trades.  The  school  teachers 
in  England  have  long  possessed  a  powerful  union; 
shop  assistants  (store  clerks),  clerks  in  offices,  are 
certainly  not  less  proletarian.  In  fact,  as  Trade 
Union  organizations  themselves  gain  in  scope  and 
complexity,  they  will  demand  the  participation  of 
trained  administrators,  accountants,  managers,  be- 

[82] 


longing  far  more  to  the  "  middle  class  "  than  to  the 
hand  workers. 

It  is  pretty  safe  indeed  to  say  that  the  issue  of  po- 
litical action  on  behalf  of  working  class  interests  has 
long  since  been  settled  in  practically  every  country 
in  Europe.  The  mass  of  ameliorative  social  legisla- 
tion, as  already  noted,  has  in  recent  years  become 
enormous.  For  the  workers  to  have  no  systematized 
representation  in  the  making  of  laws  which  affect  pro- 
foundly their  daily  lives  —  hours  of  work,  employers' 
liability,  child  labour,  health  insurance,  to  say  noth- 
ing of  such  things  as  taxation,  and  education  —  is  to 
renounce  democracy.  Nor  would  it  better  the  case 
to  leave  the  representation  of  the  workers  in  such 
matters  as  employers'  liability  to  political  parties 
drawn  overwhelmingly  from  the  employer  class  or  its 
defenders.  Indeed  the  democracies  of  western  Eu- 
rope have  reached  a  stage  of  development  in  which 
Trade  Unionists  who  object  to  the  political  activities 
of  Labour  groups  are  themselves  obliged  to  resort  to 
political  action  in  order  to  defeat  those  activities. 
When  "  non-political  "  Trade  Unionists  in  England 
are  faced  by  the  problem  of  defeating  the  policy  of 
the  "  politicians,"  what  action  do  those  Trade  Union- 
ists take?  They  form  another  political  party;  be- 
come politicians,  in  fact. 

There  is  one  very  considerable  "  new  fact,"  by 
the  way,  which  will  affect  the  question  of  political 
action  by  Trade  Union  bodies,  and  that  is  the  emer- 
gence of  the  woman  voter.  The  enfranchisement 
of  women  in  England  has  virtually  doubled  the  elec- 
torate.    The  women  of  the  working  classes  are  gen- 

[83] 


erally  the  keepers  of  the  family  budget,  and  they 
will  have  a  livelier  sense  than  the  men,  not  only  of 
such  things  as  the  future  laws  concerning  marriage, 
the  position  of  women  and  children  in  the  institution 
of  the  family,  the  endowment  of  maternity,  the  feed- 
ing of  school  children,  the  care  of  their  health,  the 
character  and  cost  of  their  education,  but  also  of  such 
things  as  the  increased  cost  of  living,  the  distribution 
and  price  of  coal  and  milk.  It  is  extremely  doubt- 
ful whether  they  will  be  content  to  await  the  full 
flowering  of  the  class  triumph  in  the  Marxian  sense 
before  dealing  with  these  things  by  legislation.  The 
women  are  likely  to  demand  action  as  and  when 
pressing  need  arises.  In  most  cases  that  action  must 
be  political,  on  behalf,  that  is,  of  the  whole  of  the 
nation  as  consumers,  not  of  some  industrial  part  of  it 
organized  into  a  Union  as  producers.  The  women 
will  stand  much  more  in  the  position  of  the  con- 
sumer, and  much  less  in  the  position  of  the  producer 
than  the  men.  And  the  interest  of  the  consumer  can- 
not be  organized  on  a  syndicalist  basis;  it  must  be 
organized  on  a  universal,  political  basis. 

So  far  as  action  taken  by  Unions  against  the 
present  British  Labour  Party  is  concerned,  it  is  to  be 
noted  that  not  only  is  that  action  itself  political, 
but  that  it  is  not  based  mainly  upon  the  domestic 
programme  of  the  party.  It  centres  upon  one  item 
of  its  foreign  policy  —  the  proposal  to  meet  enemy 
Socialists  in  Conference.  The  ground  of  opposi- 
tion will  disappear  automatically  with  the  end  of  the 
war.  Mr.  Havelock  Wilson  and  Captain  Tupper, 
or  the  British  Workers'  League,  will  not  then  be 

[84] 


able  to  call  a  seaman's  strike  for  the  purpose  of 
preventing  Englishmen  from  meeting  Germans,  since 
Englishmen  of  the  ruling  class,  the  government  and 
army,  will  necessarily  be  in  Conference  with  Ger- 
mans of  the  same  classes.  (As  a  matter  of  simple 
fact  they  have  been  in  conference  during  the  war, 
and  not  alone  over  questions  of  exchange  of  pris- 
oners, as  we  now  know.  Mr.  Havelock  Wilson  is 
quite  prepared  to  allow  Lords  Newton  or  Curzon  or 
Milner,  or  General  Smuts  to  meet  German  Princes 
and  bureaucrats;  it  is  only  the  working  men  of  the 
two  countries  that  he  will  not  allow  to  meet.)  Even 
Mr.  Gompers  is  prepared  to  meet  German  working 
men  after  the  war.  So  the  present  most  effective 
ground  of  opposition  to  the  Labour  Party  proposals 
will  have  disappeared.  On  what  ground  then  will 
the  other  Labour  Party  make  its  appeal  to  the  elec- 
torate ?  ^ 

It  may  well  be  —  It  is  almost  certain  indeed  — 
that  effective  political  action  by  the  mass  of  the 
workers  will  be  immensely  more  difficult  in  America, 
than,  in  fact,  it  is  proving  in  England.  That  may 
forecast  some  constitutional  change  in  America. 

What  is  the  crucial  difference  between  the  British 
and  American  political  machinery  of  government? 
That  America  is  a  Federation  of  States  and  a  Repub- 
lic, while  Great  Britain  Is  a  unitary  state  and  a  mon- 
archy, is  less  vital  than  external  appearances  would 

^  since  the  above  was  written  objection  has  been  taken  to  the 
Free  Trade  and  general  internationalist  proposals  of  the  Labour 
Party.  The  appeal  of  the  new  group  is  likely  to  be  fiercely  na- 
tionalist in  tone:  a  working  class  support  for  imperialism  in  foreign 
affairs.  It  will  be  interesting  to  see  how  this  is  to  be  reconciled 
to  future  co-operation  with  America,  France  and  Russia, 

[85] 


indicate.  The  powers  of  the  Federal  government 
in  America  have  so  grown  under  the  influences  of 
war  conditions,  (though  the  trend  was  aheady  strong 
before  the  war) ;  the  tendency  to  diminish  state 
rights  seems  to  be  so  little  opposed,  and  is  so  strongly 
reinforced  by  such  economic  needs  as  that  of  unifi- 
cation in  railroad  legislation,  that  America  can  cer- 
tainly no  longer  be  described  as  a  Federation  of  sepa- 
rate States  in  the  sense  in  which  even  Hamilton 
would  have  understood  the  term.  Nor  is  a  Repub- 
lican form  of  government  a  vital  differentiation. 
The  British  monarchy  is  an  important  fact  in  Eng- 
lish life,  but  not  as  a  check  upon  popular  right.  Its 
influence  is  social,  ornamental,  psychological,  not 
political  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  term. 

The  essential  difference  between  the  two  forms  of 
government  should  be  sought  elsewhere.  It  resides 
in  the  fact  that  in  Britain  the  government  —  the  ex- 
ecutive, that  is  —  is  the  direct  creation  of  the  popu- 
lar representative  body  (the  House  of  Commons), 
is  absolutely  controlled  thereby,  being  daily  de- 
pendent upon  its  support  and  good  will;  and  in  the 
fact  that  that  Chamber  is  itself  in  effect  the  sovereign 
organ  of  the  state. 

In  America,  on  the  other  hand,  the  government  is 
not  responsible  to  the  popularly  elected  Chamber,  is 
not  controlled  thereby,  and  that  Chamber  is  not  a 
truly  sovereign  body.  Disregarding  the  minor  quali- 
fications and  subsidiary  mechanisms,  how  does  the 
apparatus  of  government  In  Britain  "  work  "  ? 

The  people  (which  now  includes  most  of  the 
women)  elect  a  House  of  Commons;  a  committee, 

[86] 


in  the  selection  of  which  the  approval  of  that  House 
is  the  predominant  consideration,  is  formed;  that 
committee  is  the  government  so  long  as  it  has  the 
confidence  of  the  House,  and  no  longer.  Any  mem^ 
bar  of  the  government  can  at  any  moment  (by  the 
method  of  Questions  to  the  Government)  be  sum- 
moned to  give  an  account  of  his  stewardship  to  the 
popular  chamber,  and  any  obvious  failure  may  cost 
him  at  any  moment  his  official  life.  Any  obscure 
voter  in  any  remote  constituency,  discovering  what 
he  believes  to  be  a  failure  or  dereliction  of  duty  on 
the  part  of  a  government  department,  can,  through 
his  member  have  a  question  asked  of  the  Minister 
concerned.  Failure  to  explain  the  matter  may  in- 
volve the  whole  government;  the  thing  is  in  the  hands 
of  the  popularly  elected  House.  Or,  by  means  of 
dissolution  and  general  election  the  government  may 
appeal  over  the  heads  of  the  House  to  the  country. 
The  relation  between  the  vote  and  its  effect  on  legis- 
lation and  government  is  as  simple  and  direct  as  by 
any  means  of  government  now  actually  at  work  in  any 
great  state. ^ 

The  foregoing  is  not  a  complete  account  of  the 
working  of  the  British  constitution;  it  indicates  only 
the  controlling  factor  of  its  main  mechanism. 

But  note  how  different  is  the  American  method. 
The  popular  body  is  not  elected  all  at  once,  but  one 
portion  at  one  time  and  one  at  another.  It  does  not 
select  or  control  the  executive  body  of  the  govern- 
ment, which  is,  in  fact,  completely  divorced  from  it. 

1  President  Woodrow  Wilson  is  always  understood  to  have 
favoured  the  British  system  of  Parliamentary  respoosibility.  As 
a  professor  of  political  science  he  certainly  did  so. 

[87] 


The  executive  head  is  hy  a  Separate  process  elected 
for  a  fixed  period,  removable  only  by  the  impossibly 
cumbrous  process  of  impeachment.  He  appoints  a 
cabinet  responsible,  not  to  the  people's  representa- 
tives, but  to  himself.  The  popular  Chamber  has  no 
control  over  the  Cabinet,  which  possesses,  in  fact,  ir- 
responsible power.  Parliamentary  responsibility  of 
the  executive  does  not  exist  under  the  American  Con- 
stitution. The  whole  machinery  is  so  complex  that 
the  relation  between  the  vote  of  the  common  man 
and  its  effect  on  legislation  is  about  as  remote  as  it 
well  could  be.  It  is  extremely  doubtful  indeed 
whether  the  Constitution  was  ever  devised  to  give  the 
mass  real  control.  It  was  devised  at  a  time  when 
popular  government  in  the  modern  sense  had  not 
yet  been  evolved  in  the  English  speaking  world,  and 
when  the  great  need  was  deemed  to  be  the  arrange- 
ment of  "  checks  "  and  "  balances."  Being  a  written 
Constitution,  hedged  around  with  provisions  against 
change,  it  has  remained  practically  unaltered.  The 
British  Constitution,  not  being  a  code  or  written 
document  at  all,  but  a  loose  and  elastic  group  of  prec- 
edents, has  adapted  itself  more  or  less  to  the  develop- 
ment that  has  gone  on  in  the  mass. 

Professor  William  E.  Dodd  of  Chicago  Univer- 
sity has  described  the  social  and  economic  back- 
ground of  the  Constitutional  Convention  of  1787. 
"  This  convention,"  he  says,  "  was  plainly  undemo- 
cratic and  its  members  made  no  pretence  of  any  deep 
or  abiding  faith  in  the  common  man.  The  great 
document,  which  was  drawn,  submitted  to  the  people 
in  conventions,  and  finally  adopted  against  the  most 

[88] 


violent  protest  in  our  history,  set  up  anything  but  a 
simple  democracy.  It  created  a  government  of 
checks  and  balances  so  complex  that  only  a  small 
proportion  of  our  people  have  ever  yet  understood 
its  workings.  A  House  of  Representatives,  elected 
biennially,  was  balanced  by  a  senate  which  never 
went  out  of  existence  and  whose  members  held  office 
for  six  years.  And  all  three,  house,  senate,  and 
executive,  were  balanced  by  a  supreme  court  which 
might  veto  laws  that  seemed  unconstitutional.  Thus 
a  governmental  machine  was  wound  up  like  a  clock 
and  set  going.  At  no  time  could  the  people  inter- 
vene and  change  Its  policy  unless  they  could  work 
up  such  a  commotion  that  house,  senate,  president 
and  court  would  all  be  changed  at  the  same  time  — 
a  feat  which  has  never  been  performed."  ^ 

Serious  checks  and  balances  to  111  considered  legis- 
lation there  are  indeed  In  England,  but  they  are  not 
of  the  mechanical  nature  of  those  which  the  Ameri- 
can constitution  provides.  They  arise  from  the 
moral  conditions  created  by  the  working  of  the  Eng- 
lish system.  Close  relation  between  the  vote  and 
its  effect  gives  the  voter  responsibility;  the  English- 
man is  notoriously  more  politically  minded  than  the 
American,  he  takes  his  politics  more  seriously  because 
they  are  more  serious,  and  makes  them  more  matters 
of  principle  because  the  principles  have  effect  in 
legislation.  He  has  a  keener  and  more  critical  eye 
on  the  action  of  the  central  government  because  he 
can  affect  it;  the  debates  in  Parliament  are  part  of 
his  daily  reading.     They  are  important  items  in  the 

^  The  International  Journal  of  Ethics,  July,  1918. 
[89] 


day's  news,  and  he  is  educated  politically  by  them. 

Then  Parliament  itself  subjects  the  personnel  of 
government  to  a  sifting  process.  The  men  who  hold 
power  must  be  men  commanding  a  certain  influence 
in  the  House  of  Commons,  which  has  generally  had 
opportunities,  of  judging  of  their  capacity.  The 
conditions  of  political  warfare  compel  each  party  to 
put  its  best  men  forward.  A  relatively  —  or  com- 
pletely—  unknown  man  may  be  nominated  and 
elected  President  of  the  United  States  (Mr.  Bryan 
was  practically  unknown  at  the  time  of  his  first 
nomination) .  The  popular  assembly  in  America  in 
any  case  have  had  no  means  of  judging  of  his  capac- 
ity. But  the  Prime  Minister  of  England  must  be  a 
political  leader  in  a  real  sense,  and  have  established 
his  capacity  as  such  among  those  who  have  had  an 
opportunity  of  knowing  him.^ 

There  are  here  a  group  of  factors,  elusive  of  meas- 
urement in  some  degree  perhaps,  but  none  the  less 
real,  which  operate  against  anarchy  and  impossibil- 
ism  in  political  life. 

I  have  touched  upon  this  matter  at  some  length 
because  it  bears  upon  the  question  of  the  effective- 
ness of  political  action  by  labour  forces  in  Britain  and 
America  respectively.  Very  great  change  through 
political  action  Is  obviously,  for  the  reasons  just  indi- 
cated, a  much  simpler  and  easier  matter  in  England 
than  in  America.     This  may  be  urged  as  a  reason 

*  In  practice  of  course  the  system  is  not  by  any  means  so  couleur 
de  rose.  Collusion  between  the  two  parties,  nepotism  and  scandals 
of  a  bad  order  mark  the  system  in  actual  practice.  But  I  am  indi- 
cating nevertheless  the  theory  of  the  thing  and  the  broad  facts  of 
its  modus  operandi. 

[90] 


why  America  will  not  follow  England  along  that 
particular  road.  But  what  is  likely  to  be  the  effect 
upon  popular  movement  in  America  if  a  great  eco- 
nomic democratization  and  emancipation  is  brought 
about  in  Britain,  through  an  ease  of  political  action 
which  is  denied  Americans  by  that  Constitution  which 
they  have  been  taught  to  believe  the  last  word  in 
political  wisdom?  If  the  contrast  is  striking,  which 
it  might  well  be,  it  cannot  leave  the  mass  of  the 
American  workers  unaffected  in  their  attitude  to- 
wards existing  political  institutions. 

As  to  Utopianism  and  Impossibilism  in  social  re- 
form, which  some  American  critics  anticipate  as  the 
result  of  "  political  "  Labour  Parties,  it  is  certain  that 
actual  participation  of  working  class  organization  in 
definite  legislation  would  be  a  corrective  of  such 
tendencies.  If  the  Bolsheviks  had  been  for  a  gener- 
ation represented  in  a  free  parliament,  if  they  had 
been  obliged  to  submit  their  proposals  to  discussion, 
compelled  publicly  to  meet  objections;  and  if  the 
public  as  a  whole  had  been  witnesses  of  that  debate 
during  a  generation,  one  of  two  things  would  have 
happened:  either  the  Bolsheviks  would  have  lost  all 
practical  influence  with  the  public,  or  they  would  have 
been  compelled  to  eliminate  the  impracticable  fea- 
tures of  their  programme. 

If  we  recall  the  outstanding  feature  of  that  English 
Parliamentary  mechanism  which  has  already  been  in- 
dicated, we  shall  see  that  participation  of  Labour 
leaders  in  parliamentary  life  will  be  a  corrective  of 
"  impossibilism  "  in  social  legislation.  That  correct- 
ing influence  is  indeed  likely  to  be  all  too  strong. 

[91] 


CHAPTER  II 

THE    PROPOSED   MEASURES 

The  outstanding  measures  proposed  by  the  sub-committee 
of  the  British  Labour  Party  in  their  report  on  Reconstruc- 
tion.^ The  means  to  the  end.  Features  in  a  programme  of 
the  Lansbury-//^rfl/^  group. 

Although  American  public  opinion  as  a  whole, 
especially  as  exemplified  in  the  daily  press,  has  shown 
little  interest  in  the  British  Labour  Party  programme, 
that  programme  has  interested  very  keenly  the  more 
forward  looking  elements  in  American  Labour  and 
Liberalism.  One  American  Labour  leader  explained 
the  interest  of  certain  American  Labour  circles  in 
these  terms : 

"  The  Programme  constitutes  a  proposal  for  actual 
measures  to  be  taken,  and  is  not  the  formulation  of  an 
abstract  economic  theory.  Socialism  has  remained 
exotic  in  America  in  part  because  its  jargon  of  '  sur- 
plus value,'  '  class  struggle,'  and  the  rest  has  passed 
over  the  heads  of  the  average  American  workman. 
It  has  not  conveyed  any  clear  meaning  to  him,  and 
it  did  not  seem  to  be  concerned  with  actual  measures 
to  be  passed.  The  memorandum  of  the  British 
Labour  Party's  Sub-committee  does,  on  the  contrary, 

1  And  since  the  writing  of  these  pages,  adopted  by  the  Party  at 
its  annual  Congress. 

[92] 


deal  with  measures  which  are  at  least  understandable 
and  explainable,  if  not  immediately  practicable. 
Even  so,  the  language  of  the  memorandum  is  at 
times  too  academic  and  abstract." 

What  follows  Is  an  attempt  to  summarize  and 
simplify  the  actual  proposals  of  the  programme;  to 
Indicate  In  subsequent  chapters  very  briefly  the  spirit 
which  underlies  it,  and  which  differentiates  it  from 
American  Industrial  movements. 

The  chief  measures  proposed  in  the  Programme 
are  these : 

"  The  Immediate  national  ownership  of  rail- 
ways, canals,  lines  of  steamships,  mines  and  the 
production  of  electrical  power;  a  united  national 
service  of  communication  and  transport  with  a 
steadily  Increasing  participation  of  the  organ- 
ized workers  In  the  management  both  central 
and  local;  the  whole  business  of  the  retail  distri- 
bution of  household  coal  being  undertaken  as  a 
local  public  service  by  the  elected  municipal  or 
county  councils;  prices  to  be  stabilized  as  much 
as  they  are  In  the  case  of  railroad  fares." 

"  The  expropriation  of  profit-making  indus- 
trial Insurance  companies." 

"  The  present  system  of  centralized  purchase 
of  raw  material  and  of  '  rationing  '  by  joint 
committees  of  the  trades  concerned;  of  the 
present  fixing,  for  standardized  products,  of 
maximum  prices  at  the  factory,  at  the  warehouse 
of  the  wholesale  trader  and  in  the  retail  shop, 
to  be  retained." 
All  the  foregoing  aiming,  as  a  first  result,  at: 
[93] 


"  The  enforcement  of  a  minimum  standard  of 

life  in  wages,  housing,  education,  leisure,  health, 

provision  for  maternity,  and  conditions  of  life 

generally  affording  a  complete  security  against 

destitution,  in  sickness  and  health,  in  good  times 

and  in  bad  alike." 

The  Programme   itself  indicates   as  the   "  Four 

Pillars  of  the  House  "  that  the  Party  proposes  to 

erect,  the  following: 

(a)  The  Universal  Enforcement  of  the  Na- 

tional Minimum. 

(b)  The  Democratic  Control  of  Industry. 

(c)  The  Revolution  in  National  Finance. 

(d)  The    Surplus   Wealth    for   the    Common 

Good. 

The  means  to  be  employed  for  the  attainment  of 
these  ends,  are  themselves  part  of  the  ends;  for  the 
ends  are  the  quality  of  human  society,  and  the  means 
employed  will  largely  determine  that  quality. 

The  Programme  does  not  postulate  any  exclusive 
theory  or  method.  The  fact  that  the  Party  is  pre- 
pared to  employ  political  means  when  available  does 
not  lead  it  to  the  conclusion  that  political  means  will 
always  suffice.  The  implication  of  the  whole  is  that 
the  industrial  organization  of  the  workers  must 
stand  behind  and  reinforce  any  legislative  measure 
secured  by  political  action.  The  two  methods  must 
be  combined. 

In  the  same  way  brain  workers  must  be  regarded 
as  an  integral  part  of  the  "  Labour  "  movement,  and 
their  co-operation  obtained.  It  is  hoped  through 
the  proposed  financial  measures  to  identify  the  inter- 

[94] 


ests  of  large  classes  heretofore  outside  labour  organ- 
izations with  the  new  movement: 

"  It  is  over  the  issue  of  how  the  financial  bur- 
den of  the  war  is  to  be  borne,  and  how  the  neces- 
sary revenue  is  to  be  raised,  the  greatest  political 
battles  will  be  fought.  In  this  matter  the  labour 
party  claims  the  support  of  four  fifths  of  the 
whole  nation,  for  the  interests  of  the  clerk,  the 
teacher,  the  doctor,  the  minister  of  religion,  the 
average  retail  shop-keeper  and  trader,  and  all 
the  mass  of  those  living  on  small  incomes  are 
identical  with  those  of  the  artisans." 
How  radical  are  the  financial  measures  involved 
may  be  gathered  from  the  following: 

"  For  raising  the  greater  part  of  the  revenue 
required,  the  Party  demands  the  direct  taxation 
of  incomes  above  the  necessary  cost  of  family 
maintenance;  and,  for  the  requisite  effort  to  pay 
off  the  national  debt,  the  direct  taxation  of  pri- 
vate fortunes  both  during  life   and  at  death. 
.  .  .  The  income  tax  on  large  incomes  to  rise 
to  sixteen   and  even  nineteen   shillings   in   the 
pound,  (that  is  to  say  from  eighty  to  ninety  five 
cents  on  the  dollar).  .  .  .  The  Labour  Party 
stands  for  a  special  capital  levy  to  pay  off,  if 
not  the  whole,  a  very  substantial  part  of  the 
entire  national  debt." 
The  method  generally  governing  the  means  which 
it  is  proposed  to  employ  to  secure  the  ends  in  view, 
is  the  extension  of  the  principle  of  legislation  already 
in  force.     The  various  acts  already  passed  and  de- 
signed to  secure  either  minimum  wage  or  maximum 

[95] 


hours  are  to  be  extended  in  scope.  To  this  effort  Is 
to  be  added  a  definite  legislative  attempt,  not  to 
ameliorate  unemployment,  but  to  prevent  it. 

"  It  has  always  been  a  fundamental  principle  of 
the  Labour  party  (a  point  on  which,  significantly 
enough,  it  has  not  been  followed  by  either  of  the 
other  political  parties)  that,  in  a  modern  industrial 
community,  it  is  one  of  the  foremost  obligations  of 
the  government  to  find,  for  every  willing  worker, 
whether  by  hand  or  by  brain,  productive  work  at 
standard  rates. 

"  It  is  accordingly  the  duty  of  the  government  to 
adopt  a  policy  of  deliberately  and  systematically 
preventing  the  occurrence  of  unemployment,  instead 
of,  as  heretofore,  letting  unemployment  occur,  and 
then  seeking,  vainly  and  expensively,  to  relieve  the 
unemployed.  It  is  now  known  that  the  government 
can,  if  it  chooses,  arrange  the  public  works  and  the 
orders  of  national  departments  and  local  authorities 
in  such  a  way  as  to  maintain  the  aggregate  demand 
for  labour  in  the  whole  kingdom  (including  that  of 
capitalist  employers)  approximately  at  a  uniform 
level  from  year  to  year;  and  it  Is  therefore  a  pri- 
mary obligation  of  the  government  to  prevent  any 
considerable  or  widespread  fluctuations  in  the  total 
numbers  employed  in  times  of  good  or  bad  trade." 

Here  are  the  unemployment  measures  forecast: 

"  In  order  to  prepare  for  the  possibility  of  there  being 
any  unemployment,  either  in  the  course  of  demobilization  or 
in  the  first  years  of  peace,  it  is  essential  that  the  government 
should  make  all  necessary  preparations  for  putting  instantly 
in  hand,  directly  or  through  the  local  authorities,  such  ur- 

[96] 


gently  needed  public  works  as  (a)  the  rehousing  of  the  popu- 
lation alike  in  rural  districts,  mining  villages,  and  town 
slums,  to  the  extent,  possibly,  of  a  million  new  cottages  and 
an  outlay  of  three  hundred  millions  sterling;  (b)  the  imme- 
diate making  good  of  the  shortage  of  schools,  training  col- 
leges, technical  colleges,  etc.,  and  the  engagement  of  the  neces- 
sary additional  teaching,  clerical,  and  administrative  staffs; 
(c)  new  roads;  (d)  light  railways;  (e)  the  unification  and 
reorganization  of  the  railway  and  canal  system;  (f )  afforesta- 
tion; (g)  the  reclamation  of  land;  (h)  the  development  and 
better  equipment  of  our  ports  and  harbours;  (i)  the  opening 
up  of  access  to  land  by  co-operative  small  holdings  and  in 
other  practicable  ways.  Moreover,  in  order  to  relieve  any 
pressure  of  an  overstocked  labour  market,  the  opportunity 
should  be  taken,  if  unemployment  should  threaten  to  become 
wide  spread,  (a)  immediately  to  raise  the  school-leaving  age 
to  sixteen;  (b)  greatly  to  increase  the  number  of  scholarships 
and  bursaries  for  secondary  and  higher  education;  and  (c) 
substantially  to  shorten  the  hours  of  labour  of  all  young 
persons,  even  to  a  greater  extent  than  the  eight  hours  per 
week  contemplated  in  the  new  Education  bill,  in  order  to 
enable  them  to  attend  technical  and  other  classes  in  the  day- 
time. Finally,  wherever  practicable,  the  hours  of  adult  la- 
bour should  be  reduced  to  not  more  than  forty -eight  per  week, 
without  reduction  of  the  standard  rates  of  wages.  There 
can  be  no  economic  or  other  justification  for  keeping  any 
man  or  woman  to  work  for  long  hours,  or  at  overtime,  whilst 
others  are  unemployed." 

The  reflection  is  likely  to  occur  to  the  American 
reader:  "  Such  proposals  represent,  of  course,  the 
extreme  of  all  programmes  of  social  reform;  to  get 
the  middle  and  moderate  course  one  must  find  a  point 
half  way  between  this  extreme  and  the  strongly  con- 
servative position." 

But  the  historical  background  of  the  Programme 
just  summarized  does  not  confirm  that  view. 

[97] 


Some  eighteen  months  before  the  elaboration  and 
publication  of  the  Labour  Party  Programme,  the 
group  of  which  Mr.  George  Lansbury  is  the  leader, 
published  in  the  London  Herald  a  tentative  pro- 
gramme of  Social  Reconstruction  which  may  have 
had  the  effect  in  some  measure  of  "  setting  the  pace  " 
to  the  Labour  Party  Programme  of  eighteen  months 
later.  Almost  every  measure  and  principle  forecast 
by  Mr.  Lansbury's  group  has  been  embodied  on  the 
Labour  Party  Programme.  If  this  latter  was  not  in- 
spired by  the  earlier  one,  then  both  have  drawn  upon 
a  common  source  represented  by  the  general  feeling 
of  the  Labour  world.  And  that  of  itself  is  a  por- 
tent. Mr.  Lansbury  as  a  Labour  leader  Is  neither 
"  wild  "  nor  irresponsible.  He  has  very  great  influ- 
ence in  England,  due  perhaps  to  a  character  and  per- 
sonality that  possesses  the  quality  of  securing  respect 
from  those  who  disagree  with  his  political  and  social 
views.  The  young  men  who  surround  him  are 
among  the  ablest  of  the  younger  labour  leaders  In 
England,  as  the  paper  which  he  controls  possesses 
some  of  the  keenest  and  most  stimulating  of  social 
publicists  and  critics.  The  programme  which  that 
paper  published  in  the  spring  of  19 17  Is  almost  un- 
known in  this  country,  owing  perhaps  to  the  fact 
that  the  Herald,  like  the  London  Nation,  was  for 
long  prevented  by  fhe  Censorship  authorities  In 
Britain  from  reaching  this  country. 

Here,  textually,  are  the  outstanding  economic  pro- 
posals of  the  \^2inshuvy-H erald  Programme : 


C98] 


CONSCRIPTION  OF  WEALTH  AND  EQUALITY  OF 
INCOME 

(a)  Expropriation  of  private  landowners 
and  capitalists.  No  compensation  beyond  an 
ample  provision  against  individual  hardship. 

(b)  All  men  and  women  willing  to  work  to 
be  paid,  even  when  their  work  happens  to  be 
not  needed,  just  as  soldiers  are  paid  when  they 
are  not  fighting.  Equal  payment  for  all  to  be 
the  result  at  which  re-organization  shall  aim, 

(c)  Instead  of  the  present  capitalistic  meth- 
ods of  production  ownership  by  the  state: 

MANAGEMENT  BY  THE  WORKERS. 

This  shall  be  applied  immediately  to  the  case 
of  Mines,  Railways,  Shipping,  Shipbuilding,  and 
Engineering,  Electric  Light  and  Power,  Gas 
and  Water. 

(d)  The  National  properties  in  Mines, 
Railways,  Shipping,  Land  so  created  to  be 
leased  to  the  Unions  on  conditions  which  will 
ensure  every  member  at  present  money  value  a 

MINIMUM  REAL  INCOME  OF  ONE  POUND  A  DAY. 

ECONOMIC    INDEPENDENCE    OF   ALL    MEN    AND 
WOMEN 

Until  such  time  as  the  whole  industry  of  the 
country  can  be  organized  upon  the  basis  indi- 
cated above,  the  workers  in  industries  not  em- 
braced in  the  above  list  —  including  those  whose 
work  is  that  of  the  household  and  the  bringing 
up  of  children  —  shall  be  assured  a  similar 
[99] 


standard  of  life  by  one,  or  a  combination  of  the 
following  means : 

(a)  A  high  minimum  wage  guaranteed  by 
the  State  through  a  levy  upon  the  profits  of  un- 
expropriated  capitalists. 

(b)  Continuation  and  increase  of  present 
war  allowances  to  the  women  and  children  of 
soldiers'  families. 

(c)  Increase  of  maternity  benefits  and  main- 
tenance of  children  during  school  age. 

(d)  Great  increase  of  old-age  pensions  be- 
ginning at  an  earlier  age  than  at  present. 

(e)  Revision  of  war  and  other  pensions  peri- 
odically in  accordance  with  the  increased  cost  of 
living. 

(f)  Increase  of  soldiers'  pay  to  Australian, 
Canadian  and  New  Zealand  standards. 

This  programme  definitely  enunciates  and  sup- 
ports three  principles  to  which  the  attention  of  the 
American  reader  is  very  especially  directed,  for  they 
will  play  a  part  in  all  future  discussions  of  the  new 
social  order.  They  are  (i)  the  social  right  of  the 
community  to  confiscate  — "  conscribe  " —  private 
wealth  for  the  common  good,  just  as  the  state  con- 
scribes  the  individual  life   for  the  common  good; 

(2)  the  social  desirability  of  equality  of  wealth  and 
the  economic  independence  of  all  men  and  women 
irrespective  of  difference  in  capacity  for  production; 

(3)  the  need  for  the  management  and  control  of  in- 
dustry by  the  workers  most  directly  concerned,  and 
not  by  a  great  centralized  body,  the  state:  "  Own- 
ership by  the  State,  management  by  the  Workers." 

[100] 


The  implications  of  these  principles  are  more 
fully  discussed  in  the  pages  which  follow.  But  ac- 
companying the  programme  itself  is  an  outline  of 
argument  so  briefly  explanatory  of  the  reasons  for 
the  last-mentioned  principle  that  it  may  be  intro- 
duced here.  The  hanshury-H  er  aid  Programme 
says: 

"  Not  only  must  we  assure  to  all  our  workers 
an  income  on  which  a  reasonable  life  can  be 
led:  we  must  also  create  conditions  in  which 
work  ceases  to  be  mere  drudgery  under  a  ruling 
class,  whether  of  bureaucrats  or  of  capitalists. 
By  taking  over  the  management  of  industry  the  " 
workers  will  be  realizing  freedom  and  democ- 
racy in  their  daily  labour. 

"  The  nationalization  of  industry  will  not 
subject  the  workers  to  the  discipline  of  a  bureau- 
cratic machine,  but  enable  them  through  the 
Unions  to  organize  production  in  the  interest 
of  all.  State  ownership  of  the  means  of  pro- 
duction, balanced  by  the  control  of  industry  by 
organized  Labour,  offers  the  best,  and  indeed 
the  only  guarantee  of  individual  freedom  in  an 
industrial  society. 

"  In  the  case  of  the  Post  Office  we  already 
have  the  first  half  of  the  principle  —  ownership 
by  the  State  —  and  there  is  now  a  powerful 
movement  towards  the  second  half  —  manage- 
ment by  the  workers." 
This  earlier  programme  is  more  definite  in  its 
political  proposals  than  is  that  of  the  Labour  Party. 
Like  the  latter  it  calls  for  the  complete  abolition  of 

[lOl] 


the  House  of  Lords,  but  puts  forward  an  alternative 
which  is  not  only  interesting  in  itself  but  is  indica- 
tive of  a  trend  of  thought  already  touched  upon  in 
these  pages.  The  programme  calls,  in  substitution 
for  the  House  of  Lords,  for  a  "  Chamber  based  on 
the  representation,  not  of  geographical  areas,  but  of 
occupations,  industrial,  professional,  and  domestic, 
Labour  and  Professional  bodies  thus  becoming  a 
constituent  part  of  the  country's  government."  The 
reasons  for  the  proposals  are  given  in  these  terms: 

"  Political  and  industrial  reconstruction  cannot  be 
considered  in  complete  abstraction  from  each  other, 
and  it  is  essential  to  any  plan,  even  of  political  recon- 
struction, that  the  workers  should  have  their  own 
industrial  Chamber  —  representative  not  of  geo- 
graphical areas,  like  the  House  of  Commons,  but  of 
occupations,  industries  and  professions.  This  body 
must  sit,  not  for  a  few  days  in  every  year,  but  con- 
tinuously.^ It  must  not  merely  pass  resolutions  and 
indicate  policies,  but  have  definite  powers  of  initiative 
and  control.  It  will  represent  the  people  in  their 
capacity  of  producers,  just  as  the  present  House  of 
Commons  is  supposed  to  represent  them,  and  as  a 
reformed  House  of  Commons  will  really  represent 
them  in  the  capacity  of  consumers." 

Incidentally,  also,  the  Lansbury  Programme  calls 
for  the  "  Abolition  of  all  titles  and  State-granted  hon- 
ours," because  "  The  traffic  in  titles  has  become  a 

^This  clause  has  reference  to  the  fact  that  the  "Trade  Union 
Congress,"  generally  known  as  "The  Parliament  of  Labour,"  meets 
only  once  a  year  or  so,  and  sits  for  only  a  few  days.  The  plan 
of  an  Industrial  Chamber  was  evidently,  in  the  minds  of  the 
draughtsmen  of  this  programme,  related  to  the  Trade  Union 
Congress. 

[102] 


financial  and  moral  premium  upon  reactionary  poll- 
tics,  as  well  as  a  subtle  form  of  State  bribery." 

Finally,  it  relates  certain  demands  in  foreign  policy 
agreed  by  negotiation  ("  Equal  access  by  all  peoples 
to  the  trade  and  raw  materials  of  the  world  " ;  "  the 
government  of  non-European  races  in  Africa  to  be 
regarded  as  an  international  trust,  with  no  exclusive 
advantages  to  the  sovereign  state;  such  populations 
not  to  be  trained  for  war  or  subject  to  conscription 
or  servile  labours  " ;  "  disarmament  by  international 
agreement")   to  domestic  policy,  in  these  terms: 

"  If  democracy  is  to  be  a  reality  in  the  future,  the 
competition  for  preponderant  military  power,  which 
necessarily  militarizes  all  the  nations  taking  part  in 
it,  must  be  brought  to  an  end.  But  the  attempt  on 
the  part  of  one  nation  to  create  over  vast  areas  of 
the  world  special  reserves  for  its  own  trade  and 
industry  or  to  block  therein  the  access  of  other  na- 
tions to  necessary  raw  materials,  will  be  certain, 
sooner  or  later,  to  be  resisted  -by  military  means. 
These  conflicts,  though  the  workers  as  a  whole  never 
benefit  from  them,  are  the  main  source  of  modern 
wars.  The  price  of  peace  is  equality  of  economic 
opportunity  for  all  nations  big  and  little.  If  the 
arming  of  the  black  millions  of  Africa  for  the  pur- 
pose of  fighting  the  white  man's  quarrels  is  permitted, 
a  new  danger  as  well  as  a  new  horror  will  be  added 
to  civilization.  If  a  people  Is  not  fit  to  share  the 
privileges  of  the  British  Empire  in  the  shape  of  self- 
government  it  should  not  be  asked  to  share  its  bur- 
dens by  fighting  Its  wars.  Forced  fighting,  like 
forced  labour,  is  in  such  case,  whatever  it  may  be 

[103] 


elsewhere,  undisguised  slavery.  The  only  certain 
cure  for  war  is  disarmament.  If  the  nations  are  not 
loaded  they  will  not  explode." 


[104] 


CHAPTER  III 

IS   IT   POSSIBLE? 

Most  of  the  measures  proposed  are  actually  now  in  opera- 
tion for  the  purposes  of  the  war,  and  have  given  material  re- 
sults far  in  excess  of  anything  which  would  have  been  thought 
possible  in  August,  1914.  The  feasibility  of  Collectivism, 
tested  in  material  terms,  has  been  demonstrated.  What  is 
now  demanded  is  that  that  which  can  be  done  for  purposes 
of  war  shall  also  be  done  for  the  purposes  of  peace.  The 
political  training  and  scientific  spirit  of  the  new  Labour 
Party. 

Are  the  programmes  of  social  reform  outlined  in 
the  preceding  chapter  feasible  in  the  modern  state? 

In  considering  that  question  certain  main  facts 
have  to  be  kept  in  mind.     They  are  these: 

( 1 )  Almost  all  the  collectlvist  measures  proposed 
are  now  In  operation  In  Great  Britain  and  In  most  of 
the  European  belligerent  countries;  and  after  some 
four  years  of  experience  they  are  being  applied  in 
America.  They  are  more  successful  in  their  results 
than  any  one  In  August,  19 14,  thought  they  could 
be.  The  only  question  Is  whether  what  has  been 
demonstrated  to  be  feasible  enough  as  a  war  measure 
can  be  made  workable  as  a  normal  peace  device. 

(2)  The  condition  which  has  made  possible  under 
the  impulse  of  war-needs,  measures  which  might  not 
be  possible  in  peace,  is  the  psychological  element:  the 

[105] 


awakened  will  and  determination  of  the  community, 
in  peace  time  relatively  slothful  and  inert. 

(3)  If  the  mass  of  the  workers  find  that  collectiv- 
ist  measures  —  government  control  of  railroads, 
ships,  mines,  coal  distribution,  price  fixing  —  do  not 
give  the  results  in  peace  which  have  been  given  in 
war,  they  are  not  likely  to  hesitate  to  apply  compul- 
sions which,  unheard  of  and  impossible  of  applica- 
tion before  the  war,  have  now  been  made  entirely 
familiar  as  war  measures.  Men  have  seen  the 
State,  for  the  country's  protection,  compel  its  citizens 
to  surrender  or  hazard  their  very  lives.  Those  who 
have  submitted  to  the  operation  of  this  rule  are  not 
likely  to  hesitate  to  demand,  if  circumstances  are  suf- 
ficiently pressing,  that  for  the  country's  welfare,  the 
rich  shall  surrender  property.  Military  conscrip- 
tion is  likely  to  be  the  forerunner  of  more  complete 
and  thorough-going  conscription  of  wealth.  The  re- 
sort to  virtual  confiscation  may  render  possible  meas- 
ures which  peace  time  inertia  might  otherwise  render 
unworkable. 

(4)  Millions  of  young  men  who  have  for  years 
risked  their  lives;  women  who  have  had  to  give  their 
husbands  or  lovers,  are  not  likely  to  be  deterred  in 
the  demands  for  social  reform  by  the  consideration 
that  radical  measures  may  prove  "  disturbing  "  to 
commerce,  or  the  peace  of  mind,  and  social  quiet  of 
well-to-do  folk.  The  after-the-war  psychology  of 
the  new  electorate  is  likely  to  favour  boldness  and 
adventure  in  social  experimentation. 

It  is  the  first  of  these  facts  —  the  fact  that  the  war 
[106] 


itself  has  been  an  economic  miracle  in  its  revelation 
of  the  extent  to  which  state  action  can  secure  vastly 
productive  economic  results  —  that  will  be  consid- 
ered in  this  chapter. 

For  three  generations  or  so  before  the  war,  col- 
lectivism — "  the  ownership  or  control  by  the  com- 
munity of  the  means  of  production,  distribution  and 
exchange  " —  had  been  a  theory  advocated  by  con- 
siderable parties  in  every  civilized  country  of  the 
western  world.  There  had  been  certain  timid  and 
piecemeal  application  of  it:  gas,  water-works,  street- 
car lines  had  become  state  or  municipal  enterprises  in 
many  parts  of  Europe.  In  certain  countries  rail- 
roads had  become  State  concerns;  in  Australia  and 
New  Zealand  state  control  of  public  utilities  had  been 
pushed  further  than  elsewhere  and  become  generally 
accepted  as  a  principle.  But  there  had  been  no  gen- 
eral application  of  the  principle  that  profits,  and  the 
disposal  of  the  surplus  above  the  accepted  standard 
of  life,  belong  first  to  the  community  and  not  to  the 
individual.  Nor  had  the  tentative  approaches  to 
collectivism  in  Australia  and  elsewhere  converted  the 
world  generally  to  any  very  lively  faith  in  socialism, 
or  any  very  general  recognition  of  the  social  principle 
underlying  it.  Scepticism  as  to  its  feasibility  was 
predominant.  The  power  of  capital  and  the  insti- 
tution of  private  property  were  virtually  unshaken. 
Years  of  agitation  in  England  failed  to  secure  the 
expenditure  by  the  State  of  a  hundred  million  dollars 
for  a  national  scheme  of  rehousing  for  the  rural  pop- 
ulation, the  need  for  which  was  crying.     A  pre-war 

[107] 


government  fought  for  months  over  an  expenditure 
of  a  million  sterling  on  the  medical  needs  of  the 
Insurance  Act  —  an  expenditure  which  the  war  de- 
mands every  two  or  three  hours.  Collectivist  tend- 
encies were  fought  as  subversive,  demoralizing,  im- 
practicable. 

Then  came  the  war.  Instantly  without  any  sort 
of  hesitation,  apparently,  all  the  arguments  as  to  the 
impracticability  of  collectivism  were  thrown  to  the 
winds.  Within  twenty-four  hours  of  the  declaration 
of  war  the  British  government  had  done  what  most 
of  the  "  sober  and  experienced  business  men  "  of  the 
country  had  for  years  been  declaring  would  be  fatal 
to  the  Nation's  efficiency  and  welfare:  the  railroads 
had  been  taken  over  by  the  State.  But  the  national- 
ization of  the  railroads  for  the  time  being  was  a  mere 
beginning.  The  government  stepped  in  and  guar- 
anteed vast  quantities  of  Bills  of  Exchange  which 
otherwise  would  have  been  worthless  and  would  have 
brought  the  world's  centre  of  credit  to  unimaginable 
chaos.  The  greatest  marine  insurance  system  of  the 
world  was  transformed  from  a  private  to  a  national 
enterprise.  That  too  was  saved  from  what,  but  for 
governmental  action,  would  soon  have  been  hopeless 
bankruptcy.  But  if  the  private  capitalist  was  saved, 
so  also  was  he  controlled.  Capital  could  no  longer 
be  invested  save  as  the  government  should  sanc- 
tion investment.  The  stabilization  of  foreign  ex- 
change became  a  government  concern,  and  private 
property  in  foreign  securities  was  ruthlessly  "  con- 
scribed  "  for  the  purpose.  The  government  vir- 
tually took  over  the  coal  supply  and  the  shipping. 

[io8] 


It  became  the  sole  importer  of  sugar,  wheat,  certain 
metals  and  raw  materials.  It  fixed  prices  and  con- 
trolled distribution;  the  direction  of  the  woolen, 
leather,  clothing,  boot  and  shoe,  milling,  baking  and 
butchering  industry  passed  into  its  hands.  The  dis- 
tribution of  food  and  the  prevention  of  waste,  on  the 
one  hand,  and  want,  on  the  other,  became  the  nation's 
concern.  And  for  all  these  purposes  profits  were 
searchingly  enquired  into.  An  eighty  per  cent,  tax  on 
profits,  a  tax  which,  before  the  war,  every  business 
man  in  the  country  would  have  declared  to  be  sheer 
robbery,  was  swallowed  "  without  turning  a  hair." 
And  it  all  "  worked."  Not  smoothly,  yet  suflUciently 
well  to  prevent  a  collapse  of  credit  and  paralysis  of 
industry.  The  city  of  London,  with  untold  millions 
of  worthless  commercial  paper  on  its  hands,  Lanca- 
shire with  foreign  debts  it  could  not  hope  to  collect, 
were  not  only  tided  over;  in  a  few  months  trade  was 
brisker,  profits  were  bigger,  than  ever. 

Do  we  yet  realize  what  has  happened? 

Here  are  a  series  of  measures  of  Nationalization, 
of  Collectivism,  which  for  a  generation  all  the  "  ex- 
perienced business  men  "  had  been  declaring  would 
prove  unworkable  and  disastrous,  even  when  applied 
at  leisure  in  times  of  profound  peace,  with  due  pre- 
meditation and  preparation,  and  the  nation  able  to 
devote  itself  to  the  one  purpose  of  rendering  the  new 
social  order  workable.  The  measures  are  applied, 
not  when  there  is  ample  time  to  make  proper  exami- 
nation and  preparation,  and  when  the  social  and 
industrial  functions  are  working  normally,  but  in  a 
period  of  immense  upheaval;  when  industry  is  disor- 

[109] 


ganlzed  by  the  withdrawal  of  men  for  the  army  and 
by  the  sudden  demand  for  unusual  materials;  when 
transport  is  choked,  and  congested;  when  credit  is 
exposed  to  unprecedented  strain.  Yet  even  so,  this 
collectivism  proves  unexpectedly  successful. 

We  must  realize  to  what  extent  it  was  successful; 
at  least  in  a  material  sense. 

Suppose  that  in  July,  19 14,  most  of  the  eminent 
European  economists  had  been  collected  into  a  room, 
and  some  one  had  addressed  them  thus : 

"  During  the  next  four  years  Britain  will  en- 
gage in  a  war  which  will  withdraw  eight  to  ten 
millions  of  her  workers  from  active  production 
of  consumable  wealth.  That  is  to  say,  between 
five  and  six  million  soldiers  will  be  called  to 
the  colors,  and  between  two  and  three  million 
other  workers,  including  a  large  proportion  of 
the  women,  will  be  engaged  in  the  manufacture 
of  munitions  and  war  material.  Yet  what  re- 
mains of  the  workers  will  be  able  to  maintain 
themselves,  the  country  at  large  and  the  army 
in  food,  clothing,  fuel  and  other  necessaries  at 
a  standard  of  living  which  will  not  be  on  the 
whole  below,  and  will  In  many  cases  rise  much 
above,  the  standard  they  have  known  in  peace 
time.  The  country  as  a  whole  will  be  more 
prosperous,  and  wages  —  real  wages  —  better, 
when  It  has  to  keep  going  a  war  costing  over 
two  thousand  mlUIon  sterling  a  year  and  de- 
manding an  army  of  six  or  seven  millions,  than 
it  has  been  In  many  periods  of  the  past  when 
public  expenditure  was  less  than  two  hundred 
[no] 


millions  a  year,  and  when  the  world  was  at 
peace  and  trade  booming." 
If  that  roomful  of  eminent  economists  had  been 
addressed  thus,  we  know,  as  a  matter  of  simple  fact, 
that  every  one  of  them  to  the  last  man  would  have 
said  that  such  a  forecast  was  simply  rubbish;  that 
economically,  the  thing  was  not  possible.  Yet  that 
impossible  thing  has  happened. 

Sir  Albert  Stanley,  speaking  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, and  giving  on  behalf  of  the  government  certain 
figures  in  relation  to  the  nation's  production  under 
war  conditions,  said  this; 

"  In  spite  of  the  fact  that  over  five  million 
men  are  now  in  the  army,  and  consequently  have 
changed  over  from  being  producers  to  being 
solely   consumers,    in   spite    of   this,   the   total 
industrial  output  is  very  little  less  today  than  it 
was  before  the  war." 
It  is  true  that  any  reliable  quantitative  analysis  of 
the  present  economic  situation  is  extremely  difficult 
and  unreliable  —  and  that  is  one  reason  why  it  is 
not  here  attempted.     But  more  compelling  reasons 
for  not  attempting  it  are  these :     The  most  impor- 
tant social  conclusions  to  be  drawn  from  the  economic 
experience  of  the  war  will  be  based  by  the  mass  of 
the  British  democracy  upon  the  broad  facts  as  they 
have  experienced  them  in  their  daily  lives,  which  are 
patent  to  the  world,  and  not  upon  complex  statistics 
concerning  which  experts  will  disagree.     In  estimat- 
ing the  social  and  political  forces  which  will  arise, 
and  the  legislative  experiments  which  are  likely  to  be 
tried  as  the  result  of  .war  experience,  we  must  con- 

[III] 


sider,  not  so  much  what  the  ultimate  facts  of  the 
situation  are,  as  the  facts  which  will  most  strike  the 
imagination  of  the  mass  and  dictate  the  opinions 
which  they  will  translate  into  political  action.  "  Not 
the  facts,  but  men's  opinions  about  the  facts  are  what 
matter,"  as  someone  has  said.  And  the  impressive 
and  striking  fact  which  stands  out  is  the  relative  suc- 
cess, so  far,  of  these  collectivist  measures. 

Evidence  as  to  the  influence  of  that  demonstration 
on  the  minds  of  the  great  mass  of  English  workers 
is  of  course  implicit  in  the  programme  of  the  Labour 
Party.  But  the  very  arguments  just  presented  may 
be  found  outlined  in  the  ha-nshury-Herald  Pro- 
gramme from  which  quotation  has  already  been 
made,  and  which  ante-dated  the  Labour  Party  Pro- 
gramme by  some  eighteen  months.  The  former  pro- 
gramme centred  round  two  chief  items :  a  demand  for 
the  complete  "  conscription  of  Wealth,"  which,  of 
course,  is  a  synonym  for  expropriation,  and  for 
equality  of  income,  the  first  step  to  which  is  a  demand 
for  a  national  minimum  wage  of  a  pound  (five  dol- 
lars) a  day. 

The  authors  of  the  programme  evidently  realized 
that  the  feasibility  of  such  a  figure  demanded  some 
explanation,  which  they  furnished  in  these  terms: 

As  to  the  practicability  of  the  minimum  in- 
come indicated  above,  the  economic  facts  of  the 
war  prove  conclusively  that  a  minimum  real  in- 
come of  a  pound  a  day,  present  value,  for  every 
worker  is  quite  attainable.  The  country  is 
spending  eight  millions  a  day  on  the  war  alone. 
Very  nearly  the  whole  of  the  wealth  necessary 

[112] 


for  the  support  of  the  civilian  population,  Is 
created  by  the  labour  of  not  much  more  than 
eight  million  workers.  In  peace  times  there 
are  not  more  than  fifteen  million  available 
workers,  including  men,  women  and  children. 
More  than  half  of  this  number  is  now  with- 
drawn for  the  army  or  unproductive  army  work, 
like  munitions.  Making  every  allowance  for 
such  of  the  army  as  do  productive  work,  the 
support  of  the  army  and  the  country  now  falls 
upon  half  the  usual  available  workers,  the  half 
which  includes  the  older  people  and  the  children. 
This  calculation  is  not  seriously  affected  by  the 
argument  that  we  are  "  living  on  credit."  It  is 
not  true,  in  the  sense  that  we  are  consuming 
wealth  that  we  are  not  now  creating,  save  to  a 
very  small  extent.  Although  the  Government 
may  pay  for  its  purchases  by  money  borrowed 
from  the  capitalist,  that  is  merely  in  order  to 
preserve  the  capitalist  system.  The  actual 
material  —  munitions,  clothing,  etc., —  is  made 
by  the  workers  now,  not  taken  by  some  magic 
from  past  or  future  stores.  And  while  it  may 
be  true  that  we  are  making  war  material  instead 
of  renewing  necessary  plant,  we  have  official 
assurance  that  that  is  only  to  a  small  extent. 
The  experience  of  the  war  shows  that,  given  a 
large  and  insistent  demand  —  ensured  during 
the  last  three  years  by  the  immense  consumption 
of  war  —  the  wealth  necessary  to  satisfy  it  can 
be  produced  far  more  easily  than  was  generally 
supposed.  The  high  consumption  ensured  dur- 
[113] 


ing  the  last  three  years  by  war,  must  after  the 
war,  be  ensured  by  the  high  standard  of  hving 
of  the  workers.     Those  now  busy  destroying 
good  houses  in  France  and  Belgium  must  after 
the  war  be  kept  busy  building  better  ones;  and 
in  all  the  work  of  readjustment  and  reconstruc- 
tion necessary  to  ensure  food  and  raw  materials 
and   a    continually   increasing   productivity    in 
order  to  meet  the  continually  increasing  con- 
sumption of  the  workers. 
Some  of  the  above  figures  are  open  to  challenge, 
but  not  very  seriously.     There  remains  for  the  time 
being  unshaken  the  general  conclusion,  namely :  that 
the  degree  to  which  it  is  possible  to  increase  produc- 
tion by  widespread  co-ordination  of  the  national  re- 
sources in  material  and  energy,  even  in  existing  con- 
ditions   of    education    and    training,    is    immensely 
greater  than  anyone  has  heretofore  thought  possi- 
ble.    The  fact  is  that  with  over  five  millions  with- 
drawn from  production  altogether  (soldiers)  ;  with 
over  two  millions  employed  in  the  manufacture  of 
goods  (munitions)  which  are  destroyed  (do  not  add, 
that  is,  to  the  standard  of  life)  ;  the  remaining  work- 
ers can,  by  their  labour,  supply,  not  only  a  vast  quan- 
tity of  rapidly  destroyed  material  (other  than  muni- 
tions) needed  in  modern  war,  but  maintain  for  the 
above  six  or  seven  millions,  for  themselves,  and  for 
the  remainder  of  the  population,  a  standard  of  living 
higher  on  the  whole  than  that  which  was  obtained 
when  millions  were  available  for  productive  labour. 
It  is,  of  course,  true  that  many  now  work  at  a 
tension  and  for  hours  that  would  not  be  possible 

[114] 


normally.  But  it  is  also  true  that  much  of  the  la- 
bour from  which  the  country's  wealth  is  now  being 
derived  is  "  amateur,"  and  that  the  national  organ- 
ization, owing  to  the  rapidity  with  which  adjustments 
had  to  be  made,  is  muddled;  so  that  the  deduction  in 
the  matter  of  hours  which  should  be  made  in  at- 
tempting to  arrive  at  a  possible  normal  standard 
may  be  offset  by  the  increased  efficiency  which  would 
come  with  time  by  the  development  of  amateurs  into 
"  efficients,"  and  by  the  elimination  of  present  fric- 
tion and  waste. 

It  is  true,  also,  as  the  argument  quoted  admits, 
that  we  are  now  consuming  wealth,  which  would  — 
and  must  —  in  ordinary  times  go  to  replace  ex- 
hausted or  to  furnish  new  capital;  that  is  to  say,  to 
make  good  depreciation  and  create  new  machinery 
and  material  for  future  production. 

It  is  true,  also,  that  a  small  proportion  of  the 
goods  consumed  are  not  either  made  by  the  country 
or  obtained  in  exchange  for  goods  it  is  now  making, 
but  are  obtained  (or  were  for  a  period  obtained)  in 
return  for  the  surrender  of  past  accumulated  savings 
in  the  shape  of  foreign  securities. 

Making  every  allowance  for  these  items  the  great 
and  astounding  fact  remains  that  with  something  like 
half  of  the  workers  of  the  country  withdrawn  from 
any  work  which  contributes  to  their  own  support, 
they  and  the  whole  country  are  maintained  at  a 
higher  standard  of  living  than  before^  while  there  is 

1  It  may  be  true  that  now,  in  the  summer  of  1918,  the  English 
population  is  beginning  to  suffer  physically  for  lack  of  food.  But 
certainly  that  has  not  been  true  during  the  preceding  four  years. 

[115] 


furnished,  in  addition,  the  immense  amount  of  mate- 
rial daily  needed  for  destruction  in  war. 

It  is  obvious  that  if  the  two  million  munition  work- 
ers were  producing  consumable  goods,  instead  of  war 
material,  and  the  soldiers  were  also  working  instead 
of  fighting,  the  amount  of  total  wealth  produced 
could  be  enormously  increased  —  probably  about 
doubled  —  and  the  standard  of  living  correspond- 
ingly still  further  raised. 

Perhaps  the  commonest  confusion  in  judging  of 
the  economic  miracle  of  the  war  is  that  touched  upon 
in  the  programme  just  quoted  from.  We  are  told 
that  the  people  are  still  well  fed  and  clothed,  and  the 
general  standard  of  living  is  as  high  as,  or  higher 
than,  it  was  before  the  vast  waste  of  war  began, 
because  we  are  "  living  on  credit ";  we  are  not  pay- 
ing for  the  food  we  are  consuming. 

A  moment's  reflection  will  show  one  that  a  whole 
country,  except  in  respect  of  the  things  that  it  gets 
abroad  and  pays  for  by  selling  securities  or  creating 
new  foreign  loans,  cannot  "  live  on  credit." 

All  the  vast  stores,  shells,  munitions  needed  by 
our  soldiers,  as  well  as  the  materials  for  our  own 
sustenance,  have  not  been  collected  in  some  wonder- 
ful way  from  the  future.     They  have  been  made, 


"  now.' 


What  the  complicated  system  of  loans  and  credit 
really  means  is  that,  though  we  have  been  quite  pre- 
pared for  the  purposes  of  the  war  to  destroy  many 
things  —  life,  freedom.  Parliamentary  government 
—  we  preserve  capitalism. 

When  we  borrow  the  money  of  the  capitalist,  in- 
[ii6] 


stead  of  taking  It,  as  we  do  the  lives  of  the  people,  it 
merely  means  that  the  possessors  of  money  have 
agreed  not  to  call  at  the  time  upon  the  country  to 
provide  the  things  which  the  surplus  wealth  would 
otherwise  call  for  —  provided  that  the  country  will 
give  an  undertaking  to  provide  those  things  in  still 
larger  degree  at  some  later  period. 

It  is  curious  that  in  the  discussion  of  after-the-war 
problems  the  indisputable  facts  above  indicated  are 
not  merely  overlooked,  but  disguised.  One  of  the 
most  distinguished  authorities  on  the  problem  of 
poverty  in  England  devoted  a  series  of  articles  dur- 
ing 1 9 17  to  urging  the  crying  need  of  increased  pro- 
duction if  the  wherewithal  Is  to  be  found  to  feed  and 
clothe  the  men  when  they  come  back  from  the  war. 

But  if  we  can  clothe  and  feed  and  doctor  and 
amuse,  an  agricultural  labourer,  say,  while  he  is  a 
soldier,  at  the  rate  of  something  like  three  hundred 
pounds  a  year  per  head,  when  he  and  his  fellow- 
soldiers  are  doing  nothing  towards  their  own  sup- 
port, why  should  it  not  be  possible  to  do  so  still 
more  effectually  when  they  themselves  —  normally 
the  chief  producers  of  our  wealth  —  are  once  more 
by  their  productive  labour  adding  to  the  common 
stock? 

The  economist  just  mentioned  writes  on  the  need 
of  grappling  with  the  question  of  preventable  dis- 
ease, which  of  itself,  he  points  out,  cuts  the  possible 
production  of  the  working  classes  nearly  In  half;  he 
adumbrates  new  plans  of  more  economical  distribu- 
tion, the  recasting  of  our  means,  of  transport,  and 
much  else. 

C117] 


All  this,  of  course,  is  very  true  and  important, 
but  surely  the  emphasis  on  it  has  the  effect  of  with- 
drawing attention  from  the  lesson  that,  with  our 
existing  means  of  transport  and  existing  loss  from 
preventable  disease  —  without  any  reformation  in 
such  matters  as  these  —  we  have  managed,  with 
something  like  half  the  workers  that  we  had  before 
the  war,  to  secure,  not  merely  a  higher  standard  of 
living,  but  to  provide  as  well  all  the  vast  material 
needed  for  the  armies  at  the  front. 

The  fact  shows  that  productivity  was  not  main- 
tained at  anything  like  its  highest  point,  or  that  its 
benefits  were  not  reaching  the  general  population; 
that  the  very  imperfect  means  we  did  possess  —  with 
all  the  deductions  made  on  the  score  of  bad  health, 
defective  education  and  training,  and  the  rest  of  it  — 
ought  to  have  given  much  better  results  than  they 
did;  were  somewhere  so  ill-adjusted  that  they  were 
not  giving  perhaps  more  than  half  the  output,  in 
terms  of  national  benefit,  which  the  stimulus  of  the 
war  has  produced. 

This  question  will  remain:  If  the  collectivist  sys- 
tem can  succeed  even  relatively  when  applied  amidst 
the  strain  and  stress  of  a  war  of  unparalleled  dimen- 
sions, shall  we  be  able,  when  the  old  system  has  been 
more  or  less  restored,  and  when  the  workers  suffer 
—  as  under  the  old  system  millions  did  suffer  —  from 
hard  times,  unemployment,  anxiety,  privation,  to  per- 
suade post-bellum  generations  that  betterment  by 
state  adoption  of  socialist,  collectivist  measures  is 
unrealizable? 

The  main  argument  of  the  situation  is  already  bc- 
[ii8] 


ing  conceded  in  previously  hostile  quarters.  So  con- 
servative an  exponent  of  public  opinion  as  the  London 
Times  published  in  19 16  a  series  of  articles  called 
"  The  Elements  of  Reconstruction  " —  articles  later 
reprinted  with  an  endorsement  of  Viscount  Milner, 
one  of  the  five  war  "  dictators  "  of  England  —  which 
definitely  acknowledged  the  trend  towards  State  So- 
cialism. "  The  bulk  of  reasonable  men  in  the  Em- 
pire," says  the  Times  expert,  whom  Lord  Milner 
blesses,  "  have  come  over  to  the  primary  SociaHst 
assertion  that  food  production,  transport,  all  the  big 
industrial  enterprises,  are  matters,  not  for  the  profit- 
seeking  of  private  ownership,  but  for  public  adminis- 
tration." 

Nor  do  all  American  experts  miss  the  portent. 
One  of  the  leading  spokesmen  for  American  finance 
is  Mr.  Frank  Vanderlip,  President  of  the  National 
City  Bank.  Speaking  before  the  National  Bankers' 
Association  at  the  Chicago  Bankers'  Club  even  as 
early  as  19 16,  Mr.  Vanderlip  said: 

*'  State  Socialism  in  Europe  may  develop  problems  the 
like  of  which  have  never  entered  our  minds.  We  may  have 
to  meet  collective  buying,  state-aided  industries,  forms  of 
government  control  of  ocean-borne  commerce,  and  novel  fac- 
tors in  international  finance.  There  may  come  out  of  the 
war  changes  in  the  forms  of  government  that  will  have 
profound  and  worldwide  influence." 

The  situation  is  likely  to  work  In  men's  minds  by 
calling  attention  to  collectivist  experiments  which  but 
for  the  war  would  have  affected  opinion  only  slowly 
and  to  small  extent.     Thus  we  find  Mr.  Elwood 

[119] 


Mead  calling  attention  in  the  Metropolitan  Maga- 
zine to  Australian  State  Socialism  in  these  terms : 

"  We  have  only  to  compare  the  limited  governmental  ac- 
tivities of  this  country  with  those  of  democratic  Australia 
and  New  Zealand  to  realize  that  it  is  not  political  freedom, 
but  our  crude  and  unworkable  legislative  methods  and  organ- 
ization that  are  most  at  fault.  Popular  control  in  those 
countries  is  more  direct  than  here,  but  there  the  political 
side  of  government  has  been  subordinated  to  its  industrial 
and  social  activities. 

"  In  those  countries  the  Government  (State  or  National) 
owns  and  operates  the  railways,  the  telegraph  and  telephone 
systems.  It  owns  and  operates  nearly  all  street-car  systems, 
all  express  lines  and  the  letter  and  parcel  posts.  It  owns  and 
operates  nearly  all  irrigation  works  and  a  large  number  of 
water  works  which  supply  cities  and  towns.  It  exercises 
control  over  and  finances  water  works  operated  by  the  State 
or  by  municipalities  —  almost  none  are  privately  owned. 
The  State  also  owns  and  operates  coal  mines,  and  saw-mills 
in  State  forests.  This  is  a  recent  extension  of  State  activity, 
arising  out  of  the  need  of  placing  a  check  on  the  prices  charged 
by  coal  and  timber  monopolies.  The  State  owns  many  of  the 
wharves  and  docks  of  the  seaports.  It  owns  and  operates 
ship-building  yards  and  cold  storage  warehouses,  thus  placing 
the  small  producer  of  fruit,  meat,  and  butter  on  an  equality 
with  the  great  shippers.  It  makes  contracts  with  the  steam- 
ship lines  for  the  transportation  of  perishable  products  to 
Europe.  It  inspects  all  shipments  of  butter  and  meat  and 
fresh  fruit  and  requires  them  to  conform  to  certain  stand- 
ards. This  is  done  so  that  the  unscrupulous  shipper  may 
not  destroy  the  market  of  the  reputable  one.  As  a  result  of 
this  activity,  freights  have  been  lowered  and  service  improved 
until  now  the  Australian  producer  ships  butter  12,000  miles 
for  one  cent  per  pound  and  fresh  meat  the  same  distance  for 
three-quarters  of  a  cent,  and  the  owner  of  a  dozen  eggs  living 
miles  in  the  interior  can  transfer  them  to  government  cold 

[120] 


storage,  have  them  sold  in  London,  and  get  the  proceeds. 
Australia  is  three  times  the  distance  from  London  that 
Eureka,  California,  is  from  New  York,  but  the  Australian 
dairyman  can  ship  his  butter  to  London  for  one-third  what 
it  costs  the  one  in  California  to  get  his  to  New  York. 

**  One  of  the  fields  where  the  credit  and  co-ordinating 
influence  of  our  government  ought  to  be  exercised,  is  in  the 
planning  and  financing  of  works  for  municipal  water  sup- 
plies. A  study  of  the  Australian  system  and  its  results 
would  leave  no  doubt  about  this.  Here  each  little  town  has 
to  plan  and  finance  its  system.  There  the  State  maintains 
a  body  of  expert  engineers  who  help  to  prepare  plans  and 
estimates  of  cost  and  of  revenues  needed  to  meet  expenses  and 
sinking  fund  requirements,  and  when  these  plans  are  per- 
fected a  State  bond  issue  provides  the  money  needed  by  all  the 
towns  and  cities  of  the  State.  As  a  result,  there  are  no  com- 
missions to  bond  brokers,  no  discounts  on  bonds,  and  the 
interest  rate  has  for  many  years  been  only  4  per  cent.  Only 
those  who  have  financed  water  works  bond  issues  of  towns 
with  from  2,500  to  5,000  people  can  fully  realize  how  much 
the  people  of  Australia  save  and  how  much  the  people  of 
American  towns  pay  as  a  result  of  this  difference  in  govern- 
mental policy. 

"  State  forest  areas  are  numerous  and  widely  distributed. 
New  areas  are  being  planted.  Coal  mines  are  leased,  not 
sold.  Thrift  is  encouraged  by  a  State  Savings  Bank,  where, 
in  addition  to  the  interest  paid,  depositors  share  in  the  profits. 
What  this  means  to  wage-earners  is  shown  by  the  fact  that 
nearly  one-half  of  all  the  people  in  the  Commonwealth  are 
depositors.  Out  of  a  total  population  of  1,400,000  in  the 
State  of  Victoria,  735,000  are  depositors  in  the  State  Savings 
Bank.  Each  State  has  a  comprehensive,  generous,  and  suc- 
cessful system  for  aiding  poor  men  to  buy  farms  and  clerks 
and  mechanics  in  cities  to  pay  for  homes.  In  the  city  of 
Victoria,  4,000  families  have  been  able  to  secure  farms  in 
the  country,  and  6,000  workmen  their  homes  in  the  city  who 
could  never  have  attempted  this  without  State  aid  and  direc- 
tion. 

[121] 


"The  best  part  of  this  State  activity  is  that  it  has  not 
been  handed  down  from  above  like  that  of  socialized  Ger- 
many ;  it  has  been  created  and  is  maintained  by  the  free  vote 
of  the  people.  They  have  incurred  this  great  responsibility 
and  heavy  expense  in  the  belief  that  there  can  be  no  really 
free  society,  no  genuine  democracy  so  long  as  want  and 
misery  exist  in  the  midst  of  abundance."  * 

But  more  significant  than  newspaper  or  magazine 
writing  as  an  admission  of  the  trend  of  events  is  the 
character  of  American  war  legislation  itself.  A 
previous  chapter  has  indicated  how  narrowly  it  is 
paralleling  British  war  legislation  in  all  that  relates 
to  railways,  ships,  coal,  wheat,  price-control  and 
taxation.  The  Revenue  Bill  now  ^  before  Congress, 
if  it  passes  in  its  present  form,  which  seems  likely, 
will  be  a  very  big  step  towards  enforcement  of  the 
principle  outlined  by  the  British  Labour  Party  that 
the  taxation  of  inheritance  should  start  from  the 
point  of  asking  "  what  is  the  maximum  amount  that 
any  rich  man  at  death  should  be  permitted  to  divert, 
by  his  will,  from  the  national  exchequer,  which  should 
normally  be  the  heir  to  all  private  riches  in  excess  of 
a  quite  moderate  amount  by  way  of  family  provi- 
sion." The  bill  is  described  as  forecasting  "  the  vir- 
tual confiscation  of  big  estates."  Estates  of  over 
ten  million  dollars  pay  forty  per  cent,  and  one  may 
doubt  whether  that  will  be  the  final  figure.^     In  the 

1  Quoted    in    "State    Socialism,"    pp.    XXII-XXIII,    by   Walling 
and  Laidler. 

2  August,  1918. 

'  The  rates  on  inheritance  taxes  agreed  upon  after  an  exemption 
of  $50,000  are: 

$     50,000  to  $     150,000,     6  per  cent. 
150,000  to  250,000,     9  per  cent. 

[122J 


case  of  the  income  tax,  Incomes  between  one  hun- 
dred thousand  and  two  hundred  thousand  dollars 
pay  fifty  per  cent.;  and  Incomes  above  five  million 
dollars  seventy-five  per  cent.  And  this  In  the  case  of 
a  country  which  for  long  resisted  any  income  tax 
whatever  as  Inquisitorial  and  intolerable! 

It  is  necessary  at  this  point  again  to  warn  the 
reader  against  a  misapprehension.  As  pointed  out 
at  some  length  In  the  first  chapter  of  this  section, 
these  triumphs  of  state  control  are  not  Socialism. 
Still  less  do  they  constitute  of  themselves  a  social 
condition  which  the  workers  In  Britain  regard  as  de- 
sirable or  even  normally  tolerable.  British  workers 
are  under  no  illusions  on  that  point.  They  are  per- 
fectly aware  that  what  Mr.  J.  A.  Hobson  calls  "  Aus- 
tralian Prussianism  "  might  well  become  a  system  of 
State  Capitalism  (as  distinguished  from  State  So- 
cialism) in  which  the  individual  employer  whom  the 
worker  knew  under  the  old  system,  emerges  as  a 
State  official  with  powers  even  enlarged.  Books  like 
Mr.  Vandervelde's  "  Soclallsme'  Contre  i'fitat " 
show  a  similar  trend  on  the  Continent.     It  suffices 

250,000  to  450,000,  12  per  cent 

450,000  to       1,000,000,   15   per  cent. 
1,000,000  to       2,000,000,    18   per  cent. 
2,000,000  to       3,000,000,   21   per  cent. 
3,000,000  to       4,000,000,  24  per  cent. 
4,000,000  to       5,000,000,   27   per  cent. 
5,000,000  to       8,000,000,   30  per  cent. 
8,000,000  to     10,000,000,   35   per  cent. 
Above  $10,000,000,  40  per  cent. 
Life    insurance    policies    above    $40,000   are   included   in   the   in- 
heritance tax  for  the  first  time.     The  Bill  of  course  may  be  modi- 
fied in  the  Senate.     But  even  so,  these  figures  agreed  upon  in  the 
House,  mark  a  tendency. 

[123] 


here  to  register  the  fact  that  the  British  workers  for 
the  most  part  fully  realize  that  these  increases  of 
"  fitatisme  "  might  be  used  either  as  a  means  to- 
wards a  truly  socialized  self-governing  community, 
or  a  State  in  which  individual  freedom  has  disap- 
peared and  self-rule  become  a  fiction. 

The  ultimate  outcome  depends  upon  the  fashion 
in  which  the  demonstrated  possibility  of  employing 
the  community's  power  for  the  co-ordination  of  pro- 
duction and  distribution,  is  used.  The  war  has  ac- 
complished the  necessary  preliminary  to  any  form  of 
Socialism :  it  has  demonstrated  in  material  terms  the 
economic  feasibility  of  the  method  of  common  owner- 
ship or  control  of  the  means  of  production  and  dis- 
tribution. 

The  danger  that  the  power  gained  by  the  State  In 
war  may  be  used  to  the  ends  of  enslavement  is  a 
very  real  one ;  and  the  fight  between  those  who  hope 
to  use  collectivism  as  an  instrument  of  real  liberation, 
and  those  who  hope  to  make  of  it  a  means  whereby 
the  Nation-State  may  assume  still  greater  powers  of 
coercion  and  repression,  will  be  a  bitter  one.  Even 
with  every  good  will  and  vigilance  the  way  will  not 
always  be  clear.  But  quite  fully  does  the  Labour 
Party  realize  that  knowledge  and  science  are  essen- 
tial, even  where  good  will  Is  present;  still  more  when 
there  Is  Interested  opposition : 

"  The  Labour  Party  has  no  belief  In  any  of 
the  problems  of  the  world  being  solved  by 
Good  Will  alone.  Good  Will  without  Knowl- 
edge is  Warmth  without  Light.  Especially  In 
all  the  complexities  of  politics,  In  the  still  unde- 
[124] 


veloped  Science  of  Society,  the  Labour  Party 
stands  for  increased  study,  for  the  scientific 
investigation  of  each  succeeding  problem,  for 
the  deliberate  organization  of  research,  and  for 
a  much  more  rapid  dissemination  among  the 
whole  people  of  all  the  science  th?t  exists.  And 
it  is  perhaps  specially  the  Labour  Party  that  has 
the  duty  of  placing  this  Advancement  of  Science 
in  the  forefront  of  its  political  programme. 
What  the  Labour  Party  stands  for  in  all  fields 
of  life,  is,  essentially.  Democratic  Co-operation; 
and  Co-operation  involves  a  common  purpose 
which  can  be  agreed  to;  a  common  plan  which 
can  be  explained  and  discussed,  and  such  a 
measure  of  success  in  the  adaptation  of  means 
to  ends  as  will  ensure  a  common  satisfaction. 
An  autocratic  Sultan  may  govern  without  science 
if  his  whim  is  law.  A  Plutocratic  Party  may 
choose  to  ignore  science,  if  it  is  heedless  whether 
its  pretended  solutions  of  social  problems  that 
may  win  political  triumphs  ultimately  succeed  or 
fail.  But  no  Labour  Party  can  hope  to  main- 
tain its  position  unless  its  proposals  are,  in  fact, 
the  outcome  of  the  best  Political  Science  of  its 
time;  or  to  fulfil  its  purpose  unless  that  science 
is  continually  wresting  new  fields  from  human 
ignorance.  Hence,  although  the  purpose  of  the 
Labour  Party  must,  by  the  law  of  its  being,  re- 
main for  all  time  unchanged,  its  Policy  and  its 
Programme  will,  we  hope,  undergo  a  perpetual 
development,  as  knowledge  grows,  and  as  new 
phases  of  the  social  problem  present  themselves, 
[125] 


In  a  continually  finer  adjustment  of  our  meas- 
ures to  our  ends.  If  Law  is  the  Mother  of 
Freedom,  Science,  to  the  Labour  Party,  must  be 
the  Parent  of  Law." 


[126] 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE   IDEAL   OF  A  REAL   DEMOCRACY  AND   "A   NEW 
SOCIAL   ORDER  " 

What  is  the  feeling  behind  the  declaration  that  the  old 
order  is  done  with,  and  that  there  will  be  no  attempts  to 
patch  it  up,  and  that  an  entirely  "  New  Social  Order  "  must 
replace  it?  Mainly  that  mere  improvement  of  the  material 
condition  of  the  workers,  leaving  unchanged  their  moral 
status  as  a  servile  class,  will  not  suffice.  The  re-assertion  of 
egalitarian  ideas.  The  imponderabilia  in  the  motive  forces 
of  Labour  Politics.  Why  are  some  Socialists  lukewarm  to- 
wards or  hostile  to  the  war?  The  emergence  of  reactionary 
forces  in  war  time.  State  Socialism  not  synonymous  with 
Freedom:  nor  with  Peace.  Will  a  more  socialized  order 
necessarily  make  for  a  warless  world?  The  relation  of 
Socialism  to  internationalism. 

The  Programme  of  the  British  Labour  Party  says: 

'*  The  view  of  the  Labour  Party  is  that  what  has 
to  be  reconstructed  after  the  war  is  not  this  or  that 
government  department,  or  this  or  that  piece  of 
social  machinery;  but  so  far  as  Britain  is  concerned, 
Society  itself.  .  .  .  We  of  the  Labour  Party  recog- 
nize, in  the  present  world  catastrophe  .  .  .  the  cul- 
mination and  collapse  of  a  distinctive  industrial  civil- 
ization, which  the  workers  will  not  seek  to  recon- 
struct. .  .  .  On  the  contrary  we  shall  do  our  utmost 
to  see  that  it  is  buried  with  the  millions  whom  it  has 

[127] 


done  to  death.  .  .  .  We  must  ensure  that  what  Is 
presently  to  be  built  up  is  a  new  social  order  based, 
not  on  fighting,  but  on  fraternity  —  not  on  the  com- 
petitive struggle  for  the  means  of  bare  life,  but  on 
deliberately  planned  co-operation  in  production  and 
distribution  for  the  benefit  of  all  who  participate  by 
hand  or  brain  —  not  on  the  utmost  possible  inequality 
of  riches,  but  on  a  systematic  approach  towards  a 
healthy  equality  of  material  circumstances.  .  .  . 

"  What  marks  off  this  party  most  distinctly  from 
any  of  the  other  political  parties  is  its  demand  for  the 
full  and  genuine  adoption  of  the  principle  of  democ- 
racy. ...  It  demands  the  progressive  elimination 
from  the  control  of  industry  of  the  private  capitalist, 
individual,  or  joint  stock;  and  the  setting  free  of  all 
who  work,  whether  by  hand  or  brain,  for  the  service 
of  the  community,  and  the  community  only.  .  .  ." 

The  hsLnshury-Herald  Programme  of  an  earlier 
date  says : 

"  Not  only  must  we  assure  to  all  our  workers  an 
income  on  which  a  reasonable  life  can  be  led;  we  must 
also  create  conditions  in  which  work  ceases  to  be  mere 
drudgery  under  a  ruling  class,  whether  of  bureaucrats 
or  of  capitalists.  By  taking  over  the  management 
of  industry  the  workers  will  be  realizing  freedom  and 
democracy  in  their  daily  labour.  The  nationaliza- 
tion of  industry  will  not  subject  the  workers  to  the  dis- 
cipline of  a  bureaucratic  machine,  but  will  enable  them 
through  the  Trade  Unions  to  organize  production 

[128] 


In  the  Interest  of  all.  State  ownership  of  the  means 
of  production,  balanced  by  the  control  of  industry  by 
organized  labour,  offers  the  best,  and,  indeed,  the 
only  guarantee  of  individual  freedom  in  an  industrial 
society." 

This  programme  classifies  the  demand  for  certain 
reforms  in  education  and  for  a  "  free  social  life  " 
under  the  general  sub-heading  of  "  The  Opportunity 
to  Enjoy  Life,"  and  explains: 

"  We  put  education  under  *  enjoyment  of  life  *  be- 
cause it  is  clear  that  the  proper  end  of  education  is  the 
proper  enjoyment  of  life.  The  present  outcry  for 
better  scientific  and  technical  training,  for  the  endow- 
ment of  research  in  processes  which  may  be  adapted 
to  commercial  ends,  and  for  similar  so-called  '  edu- 
cational '  developments,  will  miss  the  real  educa- 
tional end  if,  by  centring  exclusively  upon  mechani- 
cal or  industrial  efliciency,  it  disregards  the  necessity 
for  leisure  and  enjoyment.  The  problem  of  educa- 
tion is  not  how  to  contribute  to  the  production  of 
greater  material  wealth,  but  how  to  nourish  in  every 
individual,  the  desire  for  a  full  free  life  (since  with- 
out that  desire  there  is  no  hope  of  social  progress) 
and  the  capacity  for  enjoying  a  full  free  life  (since 
without  that  capacity  social  progress  is  unmeaning). 
That  part  of  education  in  this  country  which  is  known 
as  '  higher  '  has,  in  spite  of  its  narrowness,  at  least 
one  good  point :  it  aims  at  being  a  liberal  education  — 
an  education  which  is  an  end  in  itself,  and  not  a  mere 
means  to  '  efficiency.'  This  aim  must  be  kept  in  view 
by  education  of  all  trades  and  all  kinds." 

[129] 


The  first  chapter  of  this  section  described  the  na- 
ture of  the  movement  in  England  for  the  introduction 
of  democracy  into  industry,  into  the  daily  lives  of 
the  workmen,  that  is;  the  growing  demand  that  "  self- 
government  "  shall  mean,  not  merely  the  right  to 
have  a  part  in  determining  who  the  political  rulers  of 
the  state  shall  be  —  a  matter  which,  when  all  is  said 
and  done,  is  often  one  of  complete  indifference  to 
the  worker  —  but,  much  more  important,  who  his 
economic  rulers  shall  be ;  who  shall  control  his  work- 
a-day  world,  the  right  to  have  a  part  in  the  govern- 
ment of  his  occupation  and  its  conditions.  How  the 
various  projects  of  Syndicalism  and  Guild  Socialism 
propose  to  give  effect  to  that  has  already  been  briefly 
indicated. 

What  is  here  considered  is  the  great  moral  impetus 
given  to  this  general  movement  towards  industrial 
democracy  by  certain  forces  which  the  war  itself  has 
brought  into  being  In  England,  and  which,  since  they 
are  the  outcome  of  war  measures  and  objects  now 
occupying  a  large  place  in  American  life,  are  likely 
sooner  or  later  to  operate  in  this  country  as  well. 

Let  us  note  first  the  declared  aims  of  the  war,  in 
this  connection. 

The  justification  of  the  war  Is  that  It  Is  necessary 
for  the  preservation  of  democracy,  the  right  of  men 
to  rule  themselves,  to  determine  their  own  fate,  and 
not  be  the  obedient  puppets  of  a  special  autocratic 
class  governing  by  right  of  Inherited  authority. 

But  certain  circumstances  of  this  war  have  shown 
that  a  return  to  the  old  social  order  which  existed 
in  1 9 14  would  mean  that  very  thing,  however  com- 

[130J 


pletely  Germany  might  be  beaten.  Modern  Indus- 
trial conditions  deliver  the  great  mass  of  the  people 
into  the  power  of  a  small  class,  an  industrial  autoc- 
racy who  wield  that  power,  not  by  virtue  of  any  right 
which  has  been  democratically  conferred  upon  them 
by  the  governed,  but  by  a  privilege  held  by  inherit- 
ance, the  result  of  accident,  or  even  chicanery  and 
anti-social  fraud. 

Indiscriminate  rhetoric  has  robbed  the  statement 
of  this  undoubted  fact  of  its  power  to  strike  our 
imagination.  But  it  is,  nevertheless,  a  fact,  the  dra- 
matic importance  of  which  has  been  brought  home  by 
the  war.  Mere  political  democracy  had  so  failed 
to  give  to  the  millions  who  worked  in  our  factories, 
mines,  and  fields,  any  real  control  over  their  own 
daily  lives  as  to  make  the  parade  of  political  free- 
dom often  a  cruel  irony.  The  miner  or  mill  hand, 
supporting  a  family  on  the  edge  of  poverty,  in  terror 
of  illness  or  unemployment,  subject  to  dismissal  by  a 
bad-tempered  overseer,  compelled  to  go  humbly  to 
the  manager  or  employer  who  held  over  him  in  such 
circumstances,  the  power  of  life  and  death  almost, 
found  no  redress  in  the  fact  that  he  could  at  election 
times  vote  for  the  Liberal  Candidate  as  against  the 
Conservative  —  or  the  Republican  as  against  the 
Democratic.  Throughout  great  provinces  a  few 
men  by  their  control  of  industrial  conditions  had  a 
power  over  the  daily  lives  of  millions,  immeasurably 
greater  than  that  which,  in  fact,  the  Kaiser  exercises 
over  the  lives  of  Polish  or  Alsatian  peasants. 

The  question  arose:  Is  the  aim  of  "A  World 
Safe  for  Democracy  "  compatible  with  a  social  order 

[131] 


in  which  real  control  in  the  things  that  often  matter 
most  —  the  conditions  of  work-a-day  life  —  is  given 
into  the  hands  of  a  little  class  of  favoured  individ- 
uals, an  industrial  autocracy,  as  truly  as  pohtical 
power  is  held  by  the  political  autocracy  of  Prussia? 
Does  government  of  the  people  by  the  people  mean 
a  condition  in  which  the  very  means  of  sustenance 
are  controlled  by  a  tiny  minority  holding  irresponsi- 
ble power?  In  which  power,  prestige,  leisure,  cul- 
ture, social  deference  is  given  to  a  small  economic 
autocracy;  while  the  much  larger  class  are  to  be  con- 
tent to  accept  narrow  and  cramping  conditions  of 
life,  and  the  stigma  of  social  inferiority?  Can  de- 
mocracy, self-government,  mean  anything  when  the 
real  power  in  the  community  is  held  by  a  small  class 
outside  the  great  mass  of  workers? 

Just  recently  the  American  Federation  of  Labour, 
in  its  Thirty-eighth  Annual  Convention,  virtually  re- 
pudiated the  Programme  of  the  British  Labour 
Party,  denouncing  its  authors  as  theorists  and  poli- 
ticians, and  re-affirmed  the  Federation's  intention  to 
adhere  to  "  pure  and  simple  Trade  Unionism."  The 
action  furnishes  additional  evidence  of  the  diver- 
gence of  temper  between  European  and  American 
labour,  and,  it  is  to  be  feared,  of  a  grave  failure  on 
the  part  of  many  American  Trade  Unionists  to  under- 
stand the  spirit,  the  motives,  the  real  nature  of  the 
forces  animating  the  newer  movement  in  Great 
Britain. 

The  divergence  arises  perhaps  from  the  difficulty 
which  American  unionists  seem  to  experience  in  giv- 
ing due  weight  to  certain  non-material  motives  in  the 

[132] 


European  movement,  motives  not  directly  related  to 
questions  of  hours  and  wages.  The  charges  of 
"  theorizing  "  and  highbrowism  seem  to  be  the  ex- 
pression of  impatience  at  the  introduction  of  policies 
not  easily  defensible  in  terms  of  immediate  advan- 
tage in  wages  and  conditions.  The  plain  implication 
of  the  St.  Paul  decision  is  that  the  one  object  of  the 
workers  is  a  progressive  improvement  of  material 
conditions,  and  that  if  the  largest  immediate  result  in 
that  respect  is  to  be  obtained  by  a  form  of  Trade 
Unionism  which  limits  itself  strictly  to  piece-meal  ac- 
tion on  points  of  wages  and  hours  and  by  renouncing 
any  attempt  at  wider  social  changes,  then  that  renun- 
ciation is  fully  justified.  The  assumption  is,  that  pro- 
vided the  material  condition  of  the  workers  is  good 
enough,  there  is  no  moral  objection  to  the  retention 
of  the  existing  social  and  economic  order,  of  the 
workers'  position  as  a  separate  class  therein,  and  its 
relationship  to  present  political  and  social  institutions. 
But  the  chief  impulse  behind  the  development  of 
the  last  year  or  two  in  British  labour  politics  does 
not  come,  merely  or  mainly  perhaps,  from  a  desire 
for  improvement  in  material  conditions.  That  de- 
velopment has  followed  a  steady  rise  in  wages,  and 
the  promise  of  automatic  improvement  in  conditions. 
The  main  motive  force  of  the  latest  development,  is 
the  impulse  to  a  real  democracy  —  self-government, 
not  alone  in  the  political  but  in  the  industrial  and 
social  sphere;  equality,  not  only  political  but  social 
and  cultural;  and,  for  the  great  mass  of  the  people,  a 
degree  of  control  over  the  conditions  of  their  daily 
lives  which  no  mere  Trade  Union  stipulations  con- 

[133] 


cerning  hours  and  wages  can  give.  Into  the  words 
"  democracy  and  self-government  "  have  been  poured 
a  content  —  in  part  as  a  by-product  of  the  war  it- 
self —  which  a  few  years  ago  in  England  they  did 
not  have,  and  which  the  American  Trade  Unionist 
seems  hardly  to  suspect.^ 

It  is,  of  course,  fatally  easy  to  overlook  the  force 
of  a  motive  in  others  which  cannot  be  measured  or 
even  expressed  in  material  terms.  The  difficulty  of 
giving  weight  to  these  moral  values  is  precisely  what 
makes  Irish,  and  certain  other  nationalisms,  so  in- 
comprehensible to  many  Englishmen  (and  Ameri- 
cans) and  has  so  far  made  the  Irish  problem  insolu- 
ble ;  and  which,  to  the  German,  makes  certain  motives 
of  his  enemies  incomprehensible.^ 

Yet  the  war  itself  is  inexplicable  and  meaningless 
unless  we  give  a  large  place  in  its  underlying  causes 
to  certain  moral  imponderabilia :  the  struggle  of  Ser- 
bians for  nationality,  of  Belgians  for  the  respect  of 
their  independence,  things  we  cannot  evaluate  simply 
in  economic  terms.     And  the  curious  thing  is  that 

^  "  The  new  Labour  movement  has  gone  beyond  bread-and-butter 
problems.  ...  It  is  working  for  something  other  than  increased 
wages,  shortened  hours,  or  improved  sanitary  conditions.  It  wants 
to  control  its  own  destiny.  It  is  working  for  a  share  in  manage- 
ment. .  .  .  The  worker  begins  to  suspect  that  there  will  be  less 
liberty  for  him  under  mere  State  control.  ...  As  it  is  self-direction 
that  he  wants,  he  looks  for  it  to  direct  co-operation  with  his  own 
mates.  He  is  harking  back  to  the  self-governed  industry.  He  wants 
to  substitute  Industrial  Unionism  for  Trade  Unionism,  and  hankers 
after  a  Guild  which  is  to  supersede  the  Trade  Union  proper  alto- 
gether by  amalgamating  employer  and  employed." — Editorial, 
Manchester  Guardian,  June  27,  1917. 

2  It  is  necessary  to  explain  that  this  does  not  justify  every  sen- 
timental manifestation  of  Nationalism,  which  is  sometimes  as  anti- 
social, especially  in  its  chauvinistic  developments,  as  competitive 
industrialism  itself? 

[134] 


the  reality  of  a  motive  which  the  American  Trade 
Unionist  will  admit  in  the  case  of  a  Belgian  or  semi- 
barbarian  Serbian,  he  boggles  at  In  the  case  of  Eng- 
lish working  men  with  a  thousand  years  of  bitter 
social  and  political  struggle  behind  them.  The 
average  American  would  repel  with  indignation  the 
plea  that  Belgian  resistance  was  "  highbrow  "  or  high 
falutin',  or  based  on  foolish  dreams  and  theories, 
because,  once  settled  down  under  German  rule,  Bel- 
gium would  be  as  well  administered  as  under  King 
Albert;  that  wages  would  be  as  high  as  in  Germany; 
that  the  workers  would  benefit  by  all  the  German 
labour  legislation  and  Brussels  be  as  clean  and  well 
kept  as  Munich.  As  little  would  a  New  Yorker  — 
even  an  antl-Tammanylte  —  listen  to  the  argument 
that  New  York  would  be  better  governed  by  one  of 
the  famous  trained  professional  mayors  from  Ger- 
many than  by  Judge  Hylan.  In  such  cases  we  recog- 
nize readily  enough  that  good  government  can  never 
be  a  substitute  for  self  government,  nor  efficiency 
for  democracy. 

But  the  American  Trade  Unionist  is  shutting  his 
eyes  to  this  truth  when  he  disparages  the  demand  of 
workers  in  Europe  for  wide  reaching  social  changes 
that  do  not  bear  Immediately  upon  the  Improvement 
of  wages  and  hours,  and  describes  them  as  "  high- 
brow fancies."  The  European  worker  is  merely  do- 
ing what  the  American  worker  —  if  the  war  makes 
any  equivalent  demand  upon  him  —  will  ultimately 
do;  attempt  to  translate  into  terms  of  his  own  daily 
intimate  life,  the  proclaimed  objects  of  the  war. 
The  western  democracies  are  fighting,  and  hundreds 

[135] 


of  thousands  of  Americans  will  give  their  lives,  in 
order  that  Belgians,  Serbians,  Russians  may  con- 
serve the  right  to  rule  themselves ;  in  order  that  they 
—  and  we  —  may  be  secure  from  the  power  of  an 
autocracy  constituting  itself  virtual  master  of  the 
world  and  depriving  the  mass  of  freedom. 

If  we  really  take  that  objective  seriously,  we  must 
all,  in  the  Western  Democracies  sooner  or  later,  be 
led,  as  the  British  workers  have  been  led,  to  ask 
with  deepening  insistence:  Are  not  we  too  within 
the  hands  of  an  autocracy  of  our  own,  with  a  power 
in  our  state  as  real,  though  exercised  in  a  different 
way,  as  that  of  the  military  autocracy  of  Prussia? 

What  really  was  the  position  of  the  mass  of  our 
workers  in  respect  of  freedom  and  self  government 
under  the  old  economic  order,  and  what  will  it  be 
after  the  war,  if  working  class  organization  con- 
fines its  activities  within  the  limits  of  the  older  Trade 
Unionism? 

The  workers  have  learned  that  the  mere  right 
to  vote  for  one  political  party  as  against  another 
is  no  real  guarantee  of  freedom  when  both  parties, 
even  when  sincerely  anxious  to  execute  the  will  of  the 
mass,  are  helpless  in  the  grip  of  a  social  and  economic 
system  really  controlled  by  a  power  outside  politics. 
But  not  only  does  merely  political  democracy,  acting 
within  the  limits  of  the  old  social  and  economic  order, 
give  the  workman  no  real  control  over  that  power, 
but  in  grappling  with  all  its  ramifications  Trade 
Unionism  of  the  older  type  is  almost  as  helpless; 
it  is  powerless  to  enable  the  workers  really  to  deter- 
mine the  quality  and  form  of  the  society  of  which 

[136] 


they  are  the  greater  part.  The  old  Unionism  can 
give  them  greater  comfort,  attenuate  isolated  tyr- 
annies; it  cannot  make  them  aught  but  a  special 
servile  class,  socially  and  culturally  inferior  to  a 
small,  privileged,  and  normally,  immensely  powerful 
caste. 

What  are  the  facts?  The  present  position  of 
private  property  and  capital,  and  their  relationship 
to  our  political,  industrial,  legal,  social,  educational 
(in  which  is  included,  of  course,  such  elements  as  the 
newspaper,  the  "movie"  and  the  drama)  religious 
and  eleemosynary  institutions,  gives  real  control  in 
the  things  that  often  matter  most,  into  the  hands  of 
this  little  class  of  favoured  individuals  —  an  eco- 
nomic autocracy  —  as  truly  as  political  control  is 
given  to  the  political  autocracy  of  Prussia.  This 
economic  autocracy  has  power,  prestige,  leisure,  cul- 
ture, self-development,  social  deference,  while  the 
great  mass  must  be  content  with  an  entirely  different 
quality  of  life,  as  inferior  culture,  to  train  their  chil- 
dren to  be  the  mere  servants  and  handmaidens  of  that 
autocracy.  Does  it  alter  the  condition  for  the  better 
that  it  should  be  open  for  an  infinitesimal  production 
of  the  great  mass,  (the  system  itself  precludes  any 
general  movement)  usually  by  the  exercise  of  excep- 
tional self-assertiveness,  a  capacity  ruthlessly  to  push 
aside  weaker  competitors,  to  exchange  a  servile  con- 
dition for  one  in  which  they  will  profit  by  social 
injustice? 

The  workers  in  Britain  have  decided  that  this  it  not 
democracy;  that  no  mere  improvement  in  material 
condition  can  purchase  acquiescence  in  it,  or  be  ac- 

[137] 


ceptcd  as  a  substitute  for  a  more  real  division  of 
power  —  for  self-government,  as  desirable  in  Itself 
apart  from  any  material  test;  that  moral  helotry  can- 
not be  made  acceptable  by  making  it  comfortable. 

Perhaps  we  can  summarize  the  situation  by  saying 
that  the  demand  of  the  British  democracy  Is  that  the 
mass  shall  be  partners  Instead  of  servants,  even 
though  as  partners  their  material  condition  Is  not 
better  than  It  would  be  as  servants.  We  know  as  a 
matter  of  simple  fact  that  In  the  case  of  nine  in- 
dividuals out  of  ten  in  our  society  just  that  kind  of 
motive  Is  often  the  predominant  one.  To  ignore 
It,  is  to  ignore  the  most  powerful  social  force  around 
us.  It  Is  destined  perhaps  to  be  In  the  Industrial 
field,  what  nationalism  has  been  In  the  field  of  In- 
ternational politics.  It  may  be  "  unpractical."  So 
was  the  determination  of  the  Belgians  to  defend  their 
national  Independence. 

In  this  problem  of  the  relation  of  the  war  and  its 
objects  to  the  aims  of  democracy  certain  questions 
must  suggest  themselves  to  the  American  observer 
of  democratic  movements  in  England  and  France. 
The  Impression  Is  certainly  general  In  America  that 
the  number  of  those  in  the  labour  movement  whom 
Americans  would  probably  describe  as  lukewarm  to 
the  war.  Is  very  much  larger  than  In  labour  circles  in 
this  country.  Why  should  the  Radical,  the  thorough- 
going social  reformer,  the  protagonist  of  popular 
right  and  of  democracy  be  anti-war  at  all?  Why 
should  these  of  all  people  be  less  alive  than  others 
to  the  danger  of  the  domination  of  a  power  which 

[138] 


is  the  most  anti-popular,  anti-Radical  and  autocratic 
in  the  world,  and  the  triumph  of  which  would  render 
the  success  of  the  Radical  millennium  impossible? 
On  the  face  of  it  it  would  seem  that  it  is  precisely 
the  revolutionary  socialist  who  should  be  most  con- 
cerned in  the  destruction  of  the  most  anti-revolu- 
tionary force  of  Christendom.  Usually  such  a 
question  is  not  answered  by  either  party  to  the  dis- 
cussion in  any  way  that  is  at  all  convincing. 

The  explanation,  implicit  in  the  prevailing  atti- 
tude towards  English  and  French  Labour  opinion, 
that  these  anti-militarists  and  radicals  definitely  de- 
sire the  triumph  of  German  militarism  and  autocracy 
and  are  facing  popular  hostility  —  to  say  nothing  of 
legal  penalties  —  in  order  to  work  for  the  subjuga- 
tion of  their  country  to  the  Prussian  conqueror,  is 
so  silly  that  it  would  never  be  advanced  if  it  had 
to  be  clearly  formulated.  Yet  that,  and  nothing 
else,  is  the  plain  implication  of  most  of  the  denuncia- 
tion of  British  and  French  minority  opinion  now 
current  in  the  American  press.  On  the  other  hand 
the  socialist  proposition  that  the  war  is  a  capitalist 
plot  engineered  by  Wall  Street  for  the  special  inter- 
ests of  a  little  group  of  financiers,  will  hardly  bear 
more  examination.  It  belongs  to  the  order  of  those 
social  "myths"  of  which  M.  Sorel  wrote:  one  of 
those  fantasies  necessary  for  the  purpose  of  creating 
a  group  of  motives  with  a  basis  in  pugnacity  and 
hostility  to  another  group,  and  of  providing  a  simple 
and  stirring  battle  cry.  But  never  so  much  as  in  the 
case  of  the  entrance  of  the  United  States  into  the  war 
did  it  have  less  basis  in  fact.     American  capitalism 

[139] 


with  uncontrolled  profits  would  have  done  Immensely 
better  out  of  the  war  with  America  as  a  neutral  than 
with  America  as  a  belligerent  fixing  prices  and  — 
introducing  state  Socialism. 

For,  as  we  have  seen,  it  is  one  of  the  contradictions 
of  the  situation  that  this  war  towards  which  certain 
socialists  are  so  cold,  has  accomplished  over-night, 
as  it  were,  a  development  of  state  socialism  and  col- 
lective actions  towards  social  reform  which  mere  agi- 
tation would  not  have  accomplished  in  half  a  century. 
And  —  a  further  contradiction  —  towards  that 
State  Socialism  neither  capitalism  nor  imperialism 
has  shown  itself  particularly  hostile.  Yet  in  the 
country  whose  government  since  the  war  has  gone 
farther  than  any  other  along  the  road  of  socialism 
the  revolutionary  movement  among  socialists  is  grow- 
ing apace.  Such  a  situation  shows  very  clearly  how 
the  old  lines  of  cleavage,  putting  individualist  capital- 
ism as  representing  the  bourgeois  or  privileged  classes 
on  the  one  hand  and  on  the  other  state  socialism 
as  representing  popular  aspiration  and  democratic 
reform,  has  all  but  completely  broken  down. 

That  such  is  an  altogether  false  demarcation  of 
the  rival  forces  Germany  herself  before  the  war  had 
taught.  State  Socialism,  a  widespread  "  nationaliza- 
tion "  of  the  means  of  production  and  distribution, 
are  not  measures  which  Prussian  autocracy  resisted 
as  inimical  to  their  order  or  likely  to  strengthen 
German  democracy.  State  Socialism  was  made  in 
many  ways  a  means  of  buttressing  the  Prussian  ideal 
of  the  State  as  an  all-powerful  omnipresent  authority 
disposing  alike  of  the  minds  and  bodies  of  those 

[140] 


from  whom  It  exacted  unqualified  allegiance;  a  very 
powerful  means  of  resisting  the  political  and  moral 
democratization  of  the  German  people.^  And  now 
also  in  Great  Britain  State  Socialism  —  a  devel- 
opment of  "  nationalization  "  which  would  for  in- 
stance vest  in  the  imperial  government  the  title  to 
all  land  in  certain  of  the  African  colonies  to  be 
worked  as  an  imperial  property  —  has  become  one 
of  the  objects  of  the  most  reactionary  groups  of 
British  Imperialists.  They  have  quickly  realized 
the  natural  affinity  between  military  imperialism  and 
a  certain  form  of  socialism. 

One  may  still  occasionally  hear  a  public  orator 
refer  to  the  industrial  and  social  triumphs  which 
the  workers  owe  to  the  war.  But  those  who  know 
something  of  the  spirit  which  has  been  so  rife  In 
British  and  French  workshops  under  governmental 
control  during  the  last  two  or  three  years  realize 
that  great  bodies  of  workers  accept  such  "  triumphs  " 
with  very  serious  qualifications,  despite  the  increase 
of  wages  which  in  some  cases,  has  taken  place.  The 
very  grave  unrest  which  the  utmost  efforts  of  the 
governments  and  the  most  urgent  appeals  to  the 
patriotism  of  the  workers  barely  manage  to  subdue, 
tell  more  nearly  the  true  story. 

That  story  might  have  been  different,  of  course,  If 
the  habituation  to  state  control,  to  workshop  regi- 
mentation on  military  lines,  to  the  system  of  leav- 
ing certificates  and  factory  tribunals  and  the  like, 
had  been  more  gradual,  If  it  had  been  spread  over 

1  See  the  summary  ff  the  discussions  of  this  point  in  Chapter  I 
of  this  part. 

[141] 


thirty  instead  of  three  years.  As  It  Is,  there  has 
grown  up,  side  by  side  with  the  resentment  against 
capitalism  as  represented  by  the  "  profiteer,"  per- 
haps an  equal  resentment  against  the  bureaucratic 
state  which  has  replaced  the  individual  employer,  or 
rather  (in  many  cases)  made  a  government  official 
out  of  him  and  given  him  greater  powers  than  ever. 
The  worker  still  finds  himself  a  "wage  slave"; 
he  still  has  to  barter  his  life  for  sustenance.  But 
whereas  before  he  had  at  least  some  choice  of  em- 
ployers, some  freedom  of  movement,  could  leave 
one  job  and  go  to  another,  could  resent  the  tyranny 
of  a  foreman  by  downing  tools,  he  finds  —  or  has 
found  in  many  cases  —  that  under  the  State  he  can- 
not leave,  that  this  is  an  employer  who  can  punish 
insubordination  with  death,  by  sending  or  returning 
a  man  to  the  army,  and  is  one  against  whom  it  is 
treason  to  strike.  The  self-same  "  master "  for 
whom  he  worked  originally  has  now  become  a  gov- 
ernment official,  backed  with  all  the  forces  of  the 
government.  And  yet  he  was  led  to  believe  —  his 
own  Socialist  philosophers  had  told  him  —  that  un- 
der such  a  system  the  workers  would  at  last  be  them- 
selves the  masters  and  come  into  their  own! 

By  tens  and  hundreds  of  thousands  he  has  ceased 
to  believe  it.  And  all  the  contrivances  so  far  de- 
vised by  his  Unions  or  the  government  to  give  him 
some  measure  of  control  in  the  workshops  have  failed 
to  remove  his  feeling  that  more  and  more  he  is  be- 
coming the  helpless  puppet  of  forces  outside  his 
control;  that  he  is  practically  powerless  in  the  grip 
of  a  machine  too  vast,  too  distant,  too  all-embracing 

[142] 


for  him  to  check  or  deflect;  that  the  erstwhile  em- 
ployer is  close  to  it,  while  he  himself  is  remote  from 
it.  And  the  growth  of  powers  in  the  State  has 
synchronized  with  a  decline  in  the  moral  authority 
of  its  government.  He  has  seen  It  attacked  vio- 
lently for  incompetence,  and  even  deliberate  decep- 
tion and  corruption,  and  its  personnel  changed  and 
changed  again  at  the  instigation  of  the  very  Nation- 
alists and  patriots  who  tell  him  that  it  is  his  duty 
to  submit  to  it  and  accept  its  decisions  and  dictates 
without  question. 

There  has  grown  up,  naturally,  therefore,  in  the 
minds  of  very  many,  a  divided  sovereignty  and  a 
divided  loyalty.  The  worker  has  undoubtedly  come 
to  feel  that  the  sovereignty  of  the  government  should 
be  limited  by  the  power  of  other  organizations 
nearer  to  himself — an  attitude  analogous  to  that 
which  prompted  the  Russian  workman  to  create  a 
co-ordinate  authority  in  his  Soldiers  and  Workmen's 
Councils  and  which  has  given  such  power  to  the 
Soviet  government  as  it  possesses.  From  this  feel- 
ing has  come  undoubtedly  the  growth  of  Guild  So- 
cialism to  which  so  many  observers  of  working  class 
opinion  in  England  have  recently  testified. 

But  the  question  remains  why  these  people,  fired 
with  the  vision  of  a  complete  democracy  in  the  fu- 
ture, should  be  cold  or  hostile  to  the  war  that  must 
be  won  if  the  world  is  to  be  safe  for  democracy. 
Many  —  most  in  England  and  France  —  would  of 
course  deny  either  coldness  or  hostility  to  the  aim 
of  defeating  German  militarism  and  would  point  out 
that  their  detestation  of  militarism  and  attachment 

[143] 


to  democratic  institutions  do  not  date  from  August, 
19 14,  and  that  what  they  want  is  not  a  relaxing  of 
the  efforts  to  win  the  war,  but  an  increase  of  the 
efforts  to  ensure  its  democratic  outcome.  They 
point  to  certain  tendencies  as  proof  that  the  democ- 
racies may  find  themselves  at  the  end  of  a  long  war, 
having  destroyed  militarism  and  autocracy  in  Ger- 
many, but  having  firmly  established  both  at  home; 
that  even  complete  military  victory  may  result  in 
exchanging  the  pre-bellum  condition  in  which  those 
things  were  a  menace  for  one  in  which  they  have  be- 
come an  established  fact  by  virtue  of  the  firm  poli- 
tical arrival  to  power  of  reactionary  elements  and 
that  elimination  of  more  liberal  ones  which  war  so 
often  produces. 

Now  the  monstrous  suggestion  that  the  complete 
victory  of  the  Allies  will  result  in  the  Allied  countries 
in  a  grave  setback  of  liberal  and  democratic  tenden- 
cies, does  not  come  merely,  or  mainly,  from  the 
Labourites  or  Radicals,  but  from  the  exceedingly  pa- 
triotic and  pro-war  Conservatives,  Imperialists,  Pro- 
tectionists, Clericals  and  reactionaries  generally  of 
Britain,  France  and  Italy.  The  reactionary  ele- 
ments in  those  countries  openly  rejoice  that  the  war 
has  temporarily  at  least  put  an  end  to  the  doctrines 
of  democracy  and  internationalism  which  they  have 
in  the  past  opposed;  and  the  reactionary  parties 
have  now  a  power  to  which  they  could  not  aspire 
before  the  war.  No  peace  time  Cabinet  of  the 
last  fifteen  years  in  England  could  have  included  a 
Curzon,  a  Milner,  a  Carson,  a  Northcliffe,  a  Bal- 
four and  a  Robert  Cecil. 

[144] 


There  are  of  course  perfectly  arguable  explana- 
tions of  this  phenomenon  which  do  not  imply  an 
abandonment  of  the  hope  that  the  restoration  of 
peace  will  see  the  restoration  of  more  democratic 
parties  and  influences.  But  for  the  moment  the 
fact  is  that  the  democratic  influences  have  declined; 
war  has  brought  to  the  front  parties  so  anti-demo- 
cratic as  to  be  excluded  in  times  of  peace.  Can  we 
wonder  that  there  are  some  misgivings  among  demo- 
crats? Some  fear  that  we  may,  while  intending  a 
temporary  arrangement,  plant  growths  that  will  push 
their  roots  very  deep.  There  is  no  intention  here 
to  suggest  even  that  these  misgivings  are  justified. 
But  they  explain  an  attitude  which  must  be  taken 
into  account. 

But  a  further  point  remains  to  be  examined.  If, 
as  we  have  seen,  Socialism  is  by  no  means  necessarily 
synonymous  either  with  democracy  or  with  freedom, 
we  must  also  ask  why  it  should  be  synonymous  with 
peace,  and  an  internationally  organized  world.  It 
is,  at  bottom,  part  of  the  same  question.  A  world 
of  states  in  a  perpetual  condition  of  latent  or  actual 
conflict,  will  necessarily  be  a  militarized  world,  in 
which  all  efforts  within  the  nations  towards  freedom 
and  democracy  will  be  made  subsidiary  to  military 
needs.  The  process  which  brings  the  reactionary 
to  the  fore  in  war  time  will  go  on  after  the  war,  be- 
cause "  war  "  in  the  form  of  a  contest  in  military 
efficiency,  will  be  the  normal  condition  of  life  in  the 
world. 

[145] 


^  The  ultimate  question  here  then  Is,  Why  should 
a  more  socialized  world  be  one  less  given  to  war? 
What  reason  have  we  to  suppose  that  it  will  handle 
that  problem  more  successfully  than  the  order  which 
preceded  it? 

Some  two  years  before  the  war  the  Independent 
Labour  Party  published  a  little  book  of  the  present 
writer  which  opened  with  these  paragraphs: 

"  Do  the  workers  of  Europe  want  to  get  rid  of 
war?  Do  they  think  that  It  matters  very  much 
whether  we  get  rid  of  it  or  not?  Is  It  a  thing  about 
which  they  are  disposed  to  take  any  particular 
trouble  ? 

*'  Personally,  I  would  answer  all  these  questions  In 
the  negative.  I  do  not  believe  that  at  present  the 
democracies  of  the  world  are  particularly  interested 
In  the  question,  that  they  see  any  very  direct  rela- 
tion between  the  war  system  and  the  problems  of 
poverty  and  social  progress  with  which  they  are 
grappling,  or  that  the  thing  seems  to  them  worth 
more  than  a  merely  passing  attention. 

"  One  can  even  go  a  bit  farther,  and  say  that  there 
is  a  very  general  impression  among  workers  that 
If  the  world  abandoned  armaments  they  might  have 
surrendered  a  weapon  which  could  be  used  against 
capitalist  oppression;  or  that  the  building  of  ships 
is  not  bad  for  the  wage  earners  in  that  it  creates 
large  expenditure  in  the  form  of  wages;  that  the 
armies  relieve  unemployment,  that  armament  ex- 
penditure is  'good  for  trade'  generally;  or  that 
after  all,  war  Is  a  pretty  fine  thing,  and  that  we  need 

*What  follows  is  reprinted  from  the  Manchester  Labour  Leader. 
[146] 


its  discipline.  Or,  if  we  don't  subscribe  to  any  of 
these  things,  and  are  reasonably  sure  that  war  is 
an  oppression,  we  are  apt  to  shirl^  any  action  by  the 
general  plea  that  it  is  made  by  the  capitalist  in  the 
interests  of  capitalism,  and  will  only  be  got  rid  of 
when  we  have  got  rid  of  the  capitalists;  or  that  the 
only  effective  way  of  stopping  war  is  by  means  of  a 
general  strike." 

The  misgiving  there  expressed  has  been  tragically 
justified  in  almost  all  sections  of  labour. 

It  is  not  the  fact  of  war  having  taken  place  which 
condemns  Labour.  Labour  Parties  might  have  ham- 
mered at  the  international  problem  as  insistently  as, 
for  the  most  part,  they  neglected  it,  and  still,  in  spite 
of  their  best  efforts,  war  might  have  come. 

The  thing  which  should  disturb  us,  and  cause  us 
to  take  stock  of  our  past  failures,  is  that  when  the 
war  did  come  it  found  Labour  in  England  —  as  else- 
where —  morally  and  politically  bankrupt,  in  the 
sense  that  it  had  not,  and  has  not  yet,  any  policy 
which  differs  from  that  of  the  capitalist  parties  with 
which  it  professes  to  be  utterly  and  fundamentally 
at  variance.  In  the  very  gravest  crises  of  our  society 
we  find  Labour  men  and  Socialists  the  world  over 
accepting  en  bloc  the  policies  of  the  very  order  whose 
political  conceptions  and  scheme  of  life  they  had 
heretofore  resisted  as  pernicious  and  anti-social,  and 
had  been  engaged  in  attempting  to  destroy. 

Not  only  had  organized  Socialism  in  the  crisis  no 
real  alternative  to  offer,  but  all  over  the  world  it 
has,  in  large  part,  sanctioned  the  political  morals 
of  the  capitalist  majorities,  displayed  the  same  order 

[147] 


of  political  emotions,  been  moved  apparently  by  the 
same  instincts.  Can  a  creed  which  stands  the  fiery 
test  so  poorly  as  this  inspire  very  much  hope? 

I  have  put  the  criticism  in  that  severe  form  for 
this  reason :  Some  of  us  who  were  not  Socialists  be- 
fore the  war,  and  who  are  most  conscious  of  the 
failure  of  Socialism  in  the  sense  just  indicated,  are 
nevertheless  turning  to  some  form  of  Socialism  as 
the  best  hope  of  saving  the  world  from  that  madness 
which  threatens  to  send  whole  nations  down  the 
steep  places  to  destruction. 

How  comes  it  that  with  a  deep  sense  of  the  failure 
just  indicated  strong  upon  them,  so  many  internation- 
alists are,  nevertheless,  thus  looking  more  than  in 
the  past  to  the  Socialist  solution? 

It  is  rather  important  to  make  clear  that  very 
often,  at  least,  their  reasons  are  not  those  most  fre- 
quently cited  as  identifying  Socialism  and  pacifism. 
The  little  book  from  which  quotation  has  just  been 
made,  is  devoted,  in  no  small  part,  to  combating  the 
proposition  that  war  is  a  "  capitalist  plot,"  engi- 
neered over  the  heads  of  the  people  by  little  groups 
of  interested  individuals  for  purely  individual  ends. 
Not  only  is  it  true  that  but  for  the  ready  acquiescence 
of  the  peoples,  as  a  whole,  the  intrigues  of  little 
groups  of  capitalists  would  necessarily  remain  sterile, 
but  the  whole  notion  of  the  special  responsibility  of 
capitalist  cliques  implies  a  helplessness  on  the  part 
of  the  mass  which  would  indeed  make  one  despair 
of  humanity.  It  is  not  possible  to  enter  into  that 
particular  controversy  here,  but  I  see  no  reason  to 
alter,  in  the  slightest  degree,  past  criticism  of  the 

[148] 


conception  of  war  as  "  capitalist  plot."  I  would, 
indeed,  go  further.  If  the  Socialism  of  the  future 
is  merely  to  mean  a  transfer  of  ownership  in  land 
and  capital  from  the  individual  to  the  State  pre- 
serving the  type  of  mind  and  feeling  which  we  now 
know  in  western  society,  the  Socialist  organization  of 
nations  is  likely  to  give  us  a  condition  even  more 
susceptible  to  bitter  military  conflicts  than  is  the 
capitalist  and  individualist  economy. 

The  matter  is  worth  a  little  examination.  In- 
dividualist capitalism  and  trade  is  "  naturally  "  in- 
ternationalist, rather  than  nationahst.  Much  of  the 
internationalism  of  Socialist  parties  In  the  past  has 
been  fortuitous.  The  British  capitalist,  after  all, 
did  exploit  the  Transvaal  mines  long  before  the  Boer 
War,  and  the  ownership  of  those  mines  was  not 
changed  by  the  war  itself.  If  the  capitalists  who 
finally  quarrelled  over  Morocco  had  been  left  to 
themselves  they  would  have  managed  to  divide  the 
spoils  quite  amicably,  as  the  history  of  the  downfall 
of  M.  Caillaux  before  the  war  clearly  proves.  What 
made  it  impossible  for  M.  Caillaux  to  settle  the 
Franco-German  conflicts  in  Africa  was  not  the  cap- 
italists, but  the  peoples,  the  democracies,  or  their 
Chauvinistic  elements;  not  individualist  and  capital- 
ist conceptions  of  trade  and  industry,  but  National- 
ist conceptions. 

The  first  fruits  of  the  nationalization  of  wealth  Is 
to  diminish,  not  to  increase,  that  economic  inter- 
dependence of  nations  which,  of  itself,  would  con- 
stitute, in  some  measure,  a  mechanical  check  to  war. 
And  if  our  Socialism  after  the  war  is  to  be  of  the 


type  which  the  war  has  produced  so  far,  we  shall  be 
confronted  in  the  immediate  future  with  a  deliberate 
attempt  to  break  down  the  international  basis  of  in- 
dustry, and  to  replace  it  by  a  nationalist  one,  giving 
rise  to  a  competition  in  self-sufficingness  and  a 
scramble  for  the  separate  national  control  of  the  raw 
materials  of  the  world  in  undeveloped  territories,  out 
of  which  would  inevitably  come  more  wars. 

Under  the  individualist  system  of  ownership  of 
land  there  was  no  change  in  ownership  by  conquest. 
A  victorious  State  which  captured  territory  captured 
in  fact  nothing,  because  it  also  captured  the  owners 
of  the  territory  and  confirmed  them  in  their  owner- 
ship, as  when  Germany  conquered  Asace-Lorraine. 
But  if  we  could  imagine  the  ownership  of  the  mines 
and  land  of  Alsace  vested  in  the  French  State,  Ger- 
many would,  in  fact,  have  effected  a  change  in  actual 
ownership,  as  well  as  a  change  in  political  adminis- 
tration. State  ownership  of  itself,  far  from  dimin- 
ishing the  direct  economic  motive  to  warfare,  will 
increase  it. 

It  is  quite  possible  to  imagine  Equatorial  Africa 
divided  among  two  or  three  European  Socialist 
States,  the  ownership  of  the  land  vested  in  those 
States,  the  territories  being  worked  like  human  cattle 
ranches,  and  the  "  owners  "  quarrelling  desperately 
over  their  respective  "  estates,"  and  all  of  them 
"  working  "  those  estates  to  the  last  limit  of  nigger 
endurance.  We  might  get  a  Europe  of  Sociahst- 
government  slave-owners. 

The  reader  will  note  that  it  is  not  here  denied 
in  the  least  that,  under  the  present  individualist  and 

[150] 


capitalistic  system,  certain  groups  In  a  State  like 
Germany  may  have  an  interest  in  retaining,  for  in- 
stance, the  coal  and  iron  mines  of  Alsace-Lorraine 
(although  the  economic  interest  of  the  German  peo- 
ple, as  a  whole  therein,  is  very  questionable).  The 
point  I  am  making  is  that  under  State  Socialism,  the 
case  for  the  economic  interest  of  the  people  as  a 
whole  in  conquest  would  be  far  more  plausible  than 
under  the  old  system.  The  case  may  be  summarized 
thus: 

The  pacifism  of  Socialism  is  not  the  outcome  of 
the  methods  and  mechanism  of  Socialist  economics, 
but  arises  from  the  state  of  mind  which  the  Social- 
ist organization  of  society  engenders.  War  in  capi- 
talist society  does  not  arise  from  the  mechanism  of 
capitalism,  but  from  the  state  of  mind  which  a  capital- 
ist society  engenders,  quite  as  much  among  the 
workers  as  among  the  capitalists,  and  which  may 
lead  both  to  support  policies  obviously  to  their  ma- 
terial disadvantage. 

One  of  the  most  fundamental  differences  between 
the  socialistic  outlook  of  the  twentieth  century  and 
the  individualist  laissez-faire  attitude,  of  the  nine- 
teenth, is  the  social  fatalism  which  marked  the  latter, 
and  is  so  largely  absent  from  the  former.  The 
older  assumptions  implied  that,  as  societies  grew  by 
virtue  of  immutable  laws  and  were  not  made,  man's 
collective  effort  could  have  little  effect  thereon.  The 
attitude  of  the  Socialist  (despite  the  economic  deter- 
minism of  the  Marxian  school)  comes  nearer  to  the 
assumption  that  societies  are  made  by  men,  who  can 
consequently  alter  them.     It  is  this  assumption  which 

[151] 


comes  nearest  to  explaining  the  natural  afilnity  bt;- 
tween  socialism  and  internationalism,  and  pacifism, 
not  otherwise  always  explainable.  The  underlying 
fatalism  of  the  older  doctrine  was  perhaps  the  great- 
est single  obstacle  before  the  war  to  any  common 
effort  towards  a  new  international  order  that  might 
help  to  obviate  war.  War  was  regarded  as  some- 
thing which  descended  upon  man  like  the  earthquake 
and  the  rain,  the  result  of  forces  which  he  could  not 
control.  It  was  fate,  or  part  of  our  nature,  and  to 
hope  that  we  could  change  it  was  to  "  create  an  un- 
real world  of  our  imagination  which  ignores  the  deep- 
est forces  of  human  nature."  Anyone  at  all  fa- 
miliar with  the  literature  of  war  and  peace  will 
recognize  immediately  this  attitude.  "  As  long  as 
human  nature  remains  what  it  is,"  "  As  long  as  men 
are  men  " — "  Practical  men  accept  the  world  as 
they  find  it" — what  internationalist  does  not  know 
the  weary  formulas  by  which  the  average  man 
seemed  positively  to  rejoice  in  his  helplessness,  re- 
joiced in  proclaiming  himself  the  puppet  of  some 
vague  outside  forces  which  he  could  not  direct?  The 
sophisticated  attempted  to  give  a  scientific  explana- 
tion of  this  alleged  inevitability  of  war;  the  religi- 
ously minded  drifted  into  a  military  mysticism  con- 
cerning it;  but  there  was  no  military  writer  of  any 
eminence  who  did  not  sound  loudly  this  fatalistic 
note. 

Against  that  blank  wall  of  fatalism,  some  of  the 
most  needed  reforms,  especially  in  the  international 
field,  smote  in  vain.  The  great  mass  in  Europe  were 
ineradicably  convinced  that  efforts  towards  the  pre- 

[152] 


vention  of  war  were  futile.  This  feeling  of  the 
helplessness  was  ingrained,  going  down  to  profound 
depths.  The  individual  citizen,  however  uneasy 
about  the  international  situation,  felt  himself  within 
the  grip  of  forces  he  did  not  know  how  to  manage. 
And  so,  at  the  last,  we  had  this  monstrous  paradox : 
in  July,  19 14,  a  whole  world  (including  the  great 
mass  of  the  German  and  Austrian  peoples)  wanting 
peace,  and  a  whole  world  going  to  war.  Every- 
body keenly  desiring  one  thing,  everybody  doing  ex- 
actly the  opposite.  Butler's  phantasy  had  become 
a  fact  and  the  machine  which  mankind  had  created 
with  his  own  hands  turned  round  and  destroyed 
him. 

Now  that  could  never  have  happened  if  men  as 
a  whole  had  been  inspired  for  a  generation  previ- 
ously by  a  different  spirit.  If  they  had  been  accus- 
tomed to  the  view  that  society  was  mainly  what  they 
cared  to  make  it,  that  it  depended  upon  their  will, 
that  they  could,  in  fact,  "  manage  themselves,"  the 
monstrous  paradox  just  described  would  have  been 
impossible. 

Happily,  Socialism,  of  whatever  form,  has  got 
away  from  the  notion  that  you  must  leave  things  in 
society  to  happy  —  or  unhappy  —  chance;  to  im- 
mutable "  laws  "  we  cannot  modify;  that  States  are 
not  "  made."  And  that  is  the  very  first  step  to  a 
"  co-operative  peace." 

But  there  is  a  second,  just  as  important.  xAUled 
to  this  habit,  which  belonged  so  much  to  the  old  in- 
dividualist society,  of  "  taking  things  as  we  find 
them,"  of  regarding  the  organization  of  society  as 

[153] 


something  that  we  cannot  much  alter,  went  also  the 
habit  of  refusing  to  question  the  purpose  for  which 
our  State  had  come  into  being.  English  or  Ger- 
man, we  all  had  to  defend  our  Fatherland:  "  For 
King  and  Country."  Any  kind  of  king  and  any 
kind  of  country.  That  was  part  of  an  almost  re- 
ligious injunction.  The  notion  that  we  should  ques- 
tion the  kind  of  country  that  it  should  be,  immediately 
(and  very  suggestively)  "  smelt  of  Socialism." 

The  Tory  was  ready  to  die  for  his  country  —  has 
died  for  it  in  his  thousands  —  without  ever  asking 
for  a  moment  what  it  stood  for.  "  My  country, 
right  or  wrong."  It  is  a  real  religious  fanaticism, 
the  "  religion  of  nationalism."  Its  devotee  asks  no 
questions.     He  is  of  his  herd,  and  he  fights  with  it. 

It  is  in  a  special  sense  true  of  the  German;  but 
it  is  also  true,  in  some  degree,  of  his  enemy.  Each 
at  the  outbreak  of  the  war  was  for  his  State,  what- 
ever that  State  stood  for,  without  question.  And 
that  of  course,  would  have  made  war  inevitable,  even 
if  the  differences  between  them  had  been  of  the 
smallest. 

The  socialistic  attitude  helps  to  correct  the  funda- 
mental assumption  that  the  ultimate  problem  in  poli- 
tics is  concerned  with  the  struggle  of  rival  states  for 
domination  and  survival.  It  tends  to  make  men 
feel,  on  the  contrary,  that  the  ultimate  problem  of 
politics  is  the  quality  of  life  led  by  the  men  that 
make  up  the  states. 

The  wiseacres  in  Germany  and  elsewhere,  who 
manage  to  make  life  in  the  world  what  it  has  been  for 
its  youth  during  the  last  four  years,  and  what  it  is 

[154] 


likely  to  be  during  the  next  generation  or  tv/o,  have 
achieved  that  appalling  result  by  talking  In  terms  of 
"  National  Destiny,"  "  Fatherland,"  and  the  rest 
of  it,  instead  of  in  terms  of  the  dally  lives  of  men  and 
women.  If  you  were  to  ask  one  of  these  poHtlcal 
bandits  (not  alone  In  Prussia),  how  his  triumphs 
of  statecraft,  the  carrying  of  his  flag  over  the  world, 
would  affect  the  daily  life  of  his  own  people  under 
It,  he  would  deem  you  guilty  of  a  gross  Irrelevance. 
High  politics  are  not  concerned  with  such  trivialities. 
If  we  could  become  deeply  Interested  In  the  quality  of 
the  common  life  In  our  states  —  if  that  were  our 
main  Interest  —  we  should  see  that  thereon  these 
changes  of  frontiers  and  political  sovereignties  about 
which  most  wars  are  fought,  have  no  bearing.  The 
Statesmen  will  never  solve  the  political  problems  of 
Europe  by  settling  the  questions  Involved,  because 
for  the  most  part,  they  cannot  be  settled.  Five  dif- 
ferent nationalities  are  today  laying  equally  just 
claims  to  the  same  piece  of  Balkan  territory.  Do- 
ing "  justice  "  to  one,  means  doing  Injustice  to  four 
—  however  you  may  settle  it.  But  if  the  main  In- 
terest of  these  people  were  centred  on  the  quality 
of  their  lives  —  on  work,  health,  love,  children, 
art,  music,  play, —  no  problems  would  have  arisen. 
But  we  have  built  a  political  tradition,  as  we  built 
In  the  past,  a  religious  tradition,  around  Irreconcil- 
able differences  that  do  not  matter.  The  story  of 
the  religious  struggles  gives  us  a  hint  of  the  fashion 
in  which  socialism  may  be  working  towards  a  solu- 
tion. 

Europe  fought  for  some  two  hundred  years  over 
[i55l 


questions  arising  out  of  the  problem  of  the  Real 
Presence.  The  religious  wars  did  not  stop  because 
that  question  was  settled  (they  could  not  settle 
it)  but  because  men  became  interested  in  other 
things,  which,  strange  as  it  may  seem,  enabled  them 
to  see  that  battles  cannot  determine  a  theological 
question.  And  the  story  of  socialism  would  seem  to 
show  that  advance  in  the  political  field  will  be  made, 
not  by  frontal  attack  upon  old  political  and  national- 
ist dogmas,  and  prejudices,  but  by  getting  folk,  con- 
cerned about  things  more  real  than  rival  national- 
isms: about  a  socialism  that  is  not  merely  a  matter 
of  recasting  the  mechanism  of  production  and  ex- 
change.^ 

iThe  idea  seems  to  be  disturbing  Mr.  Wells.  The  following 
from  "  Joan  and  Peter,"  although  certainly  very  inadequate  as  a 
statement  of  the  problem  of  Irish  nationaliim,  does  bring  into  relief 
the  point  just  dealt  with: 

"  All  this  rot  about  Ireland  a  Nation  and  about  the  Harp,  which 
isn't  properly  their  symbol,  and  the  dear  old  Green  Flag,  which 
isn't  properly  their  colour!  .  .  .  They  can't  believe  in  that  stuflF 
nowadays.  .  .  .  But  can  they?  In  our  big  world?  And  about  be- 
ing a  Black  Protestant  and  pretending  Catholics  are  poison,  or  the 
other  way  round.  What  are  Protestants  and  Catholics  now?  .  .  . 
Old,  dead  squabbles.  .  .  .  Dead  as  Druids.  .  .  .  Keeping  up  all 
that  bickering  stuflF,  when  a  child  of  eight  ought  to  know  nowadays 
that  the  Christian  God  started  out  to  be  a  universal,  charitable 
God.  ...  If  Christ  came  to  Dublin  the  Catholics  and  Protestants 
would  have  a  free  fight  to  settle  which  was  to  crucify  him.  .  .  ." 

"  It's  the  way  with  them,"  said  Oswald.  "  We've  got  to  respect 
Irish  opinion." 

"  It  doesn't  respect  itself.  Everywhere  else  in  the  world,  wher- 
ever we  have  been,  there's  been  at  least  something  iike  the  germ  of 
an  idea  of  a  new  life.  But  here!  When  you  get  over  here  you 
realize  for  the  first  time  that  England  is  after  all  a  living  country 
trying  to  get  on  to  something  —  compared  with  this  merry-go-round. 
.  .  .  It's  exactly  like  a  merry-go-round  churning  away.  It's  the 
atmosphere  of  a  country  fair.  An  Irishman  hasn't  any  idea  of  a 
future  at  all,  so  far  as  I  can  see  —  except  that  perhaps  his  grand- 
children will  tell  stories  of  what  a  fine  fellow  he  was.  .  .  ." 

Oswald  was  not  sure  of  the  extent  of  Peter's  audience.  "The 
susceptibilities  of  a  proud  people,  Peter,"  he  whispered,  with  his 
eye  on  the  back  of  their  host. 

[156] 


"  feother  their  susceptibilities.  Much  they  care  for  our  suscepti- 
bilities. The  worst  insult  you  can  offer  a  grownup  man  is  to 
humour  him,"  said  Peter.  "  What's  the  good  of  pretending  to  be 
sympathetic  with  all  this  Wearing  of  the  Green .-'  It's  like  our 
White  Rose  League.  Let  'em  do  it  by  all  means  if  they  want  to, 
but  don't  let's  pretend  we  think  it  romantic  and  beautiful  and  all 
the  rest  of  it.  It's  just  posing  and  dressing  up,  and  it's  a  nuisance. 
Nobby.  All  Dublin  is  posing  and  dressing  up  and  playing  at  re- 
bellion, and  so  is  all  Ulster.  The  Volunteers  of  the  eighteenth 
century  all  over  again.  It's  like  historical  charades.  And  they've 
pointed  loaded  guns  at  e<ich  other.  Only  idiots  point  loaded  guns. 
W^hy  can't  we  get  out  of  it  and  leave  them  to  pose  and  dress  up 
and  then  tell  anecdotes  and  anecdotes  and  anecdotes  about  it  until 
they  are  sick  of  it?  If  ever  they  are  sick  of  it.  Let  them  have 
their  Civil  War  if  they  want  it ;  let  them  keep  on  with  Civil  Wars 
for  ever;  what  has  it  got  to  do  with  us?" 

He  went  on  talking  after  a  moment's  reflection. 

"  It's  as  if  we  were  hypnotized  and  couldn't  get  away  from  mean 
things,  beastly  suspicions  and  stale  quarrels.  I  suppose  we  are  still 
half  apes.  I  suppose  our  brains  set  too  easily  and  rapidly.  I  sup- 
pose it's  easy  to  quarrel  yet  and  still  hard  to  understand.  We  take 
to  jealousy  and  bitterness  as  ducklings  take  to  water." 

"Is  there  no  way  out,  Peter?" 

"If  some  great  idea  would  take  hold  of  the  world!"  said 
Peter.  ... 

"  There  have  been  some  great  ideas,"  said  Oswald. 

"  If  it  would  take  hold  of  one's  life."  Peter  finished  his 
thought.  .  .  . 

"  There  has  been  Christianity,"  said  Oswald. 

"Christianity!  "  Peter  pointed  at  the  distant  mist  that  was  Dub- 
lin. "  Sour  Protestants,"  he  said,  "  and  dirty  priests  setting  simple 
people  by  the  ears." 

"  But  that  isn't  true  Christianity." 

"There  isn't  true  Christianity,"  said  Peter  compactly.  .  .  . 

"Well,  there's  love  of  country,  then,"  said  Oswald. 

"That  Dublin  corporation  is  the  most  patriotic  and  nationalist  iu 
the  world.  Fierce  about  it.  And  it's  got  complete  control  there. 
It's  green  in  grain.  No  English  need  apply.  .  .  .  From  the  point 
of  view  of  administration  that  town  is  a  muck  heap  —  for  patriotic 
Growings.  Look  at  their  dirty  ill-paved  streets.  Look  at  their  filthy 
slums!  See  how  they  let  their  blessed  nation's  children  fester  and 
die!" 

"  There  are  bigger  ideas  than  patriotism.  There  are  ideas  of 
empire,  the  Pax  Britannica." 

"  Lansdowne  and  Carson  smuggling  guns." 

"Well,  is  there  nothing?  Do  you  know  of  nothing?"  Oswald 
turned  on  his  ward  for  the  reply. 

"  There's  a  sort  of  idea,  I  suppose." 

"But  what  idea?  " 

"There's  an  idea  in  our  minds." 

"  But  what  is  it,  Peter  ?  " 

C157] 


"  Call  it  Civilization,"  Peter  tried. 

"  I  believe,"  he  went  on,  weighing  his  words  carefully,  "  as  you 
believe  really,  in  the  Republic  of  Mankind,  in  universal  work  for  a 
common  end  —  for  freedom,  welfare  and  beauty.  Haven't  you 
taught  me  that  ?  " 

"  Have  I  taught  you  that  ?  " 

"  What  else  can  there  be?  " 

"  I  suppose  I  have  been  coming  to  that  myself,"  said  Oswald. 

"  I  think  you've  always  been  there.  That  seems  to  me  to  be  the 
commonsense  aim  for  all  humanity.  You're  awake  to  it.  You've 
awakened  me  to  it  and  I  believe  in  it.  But  most  of  this  world  is 
still  deep  in  its  old  Fixed  Ideas,  walking  in  its  sleep,  the  Fixed 
Ideas  of  class  and  nationality,  of  partizan  religion,  race  supersti- 
tion, and  all  the  rest  of  'em.  These  things  hold  the  mind  of  the 
world.  And  it  won't  wake  up.  It  won't  wake  up.  .  .  .  What  can 
we  do?  We've  got  to  a  sort  of  idea,  it's  true.  But  here  are  these 
Irish,  for  example,  naturally  wittier  and  quicker  than  you  or  I, 
hypnotized  by  Orange  and  Green,  by  Protestant  and  Catholic,  by 
all  these  stale  things  —  drifting  towards  murder.  It's  murder  is 
coming  here.  You  can  smell  the  bloodshed  coming  on  the  air  — 
and  people  like  we  are  can't  do  a  thing  to  prevent  it.  Not  a  thing. 
The  silliest  bloodshed  it  will  be.  The  silliest  bloodshed  the  world 
has  ever  seen.     We  can't  do  a  thing  to  wake  them  up.  .  •  ." 

He  danced  a  couple  of  steps  with  vexation. 

"  I  don't  knoiv,  Nobby,"  he  cried.  "  I  don't  know.  I  can't  find 
the  way.  I'm  making  a  mess  of  my  life.  I'm  not  getting  on  with 
my  work.  You  knoiv  I'm  not.  .  .  .  Either  we're  mad  or  this  world 
is.  Here's  all  these  people  in  Ireland  letting  a  solemn  humbug  of  a 
lawyer  with  a  heavy  chin  and  a  lumpish  mind  muddle  them  into  a 
civil  war  —  and  that's  reality!  That's  life!  The  Solemn  League 
and  Covenant  —  copied  out  of  old  history  books!  That's  being 
serious!  And  over  there  in  England,  across  the  sea,  muddle  and 
muck  and  nonsense  indescribable.  Oh  and  we're  in  it!  ...  Ohl 
I  want  to  get  out  of  all  this.  I  don't  like  this  world  of  ours.  I 
want  to  get  into  a  world  awake.  I'm  young  and  I'm  greedy.  I've 
only  got  one  life  to  live,  Nobby.  ...  I  want  to  spend  it  where 
something  is  being  made.  Made  for  good  and  all.  Where  clever 
men  can  do  something  more  than  sit  overlong  at  meals  and  tell 
spiteful,  funny  stories.  Where  there's  something  better  to  do  than 
play  about  with  one's  brains  and  viscera!  .  •  ." 


[158] 


CHAPTER  V 

MILITARY  CONSCRIPTION  AND  THE  INSTITUTION  OF 
PRIVATE    PROPERTY 

The  fashion  in  which  the  needs  of  war  have  prompted  a 
reassertion  of  the  absolute  rights  of  the  state  over  the  person 
—  his  life  and  mind  —  is  modifying  age-long  conceptions  of 
private  property.  Confiscation,  conscription  of  wealth  and 
the  Eighth  Commandment.  Not  repudiation,  but  a  progres- 
sive income  tax.  The  virtual  bankruptcy  of  some  of  the 
belligerent  states  and  its  effect  on  future  legislation.  Neces- 
sitas  .  .  . 

"  In  the  disposal  of  the  surplus  above  the 
standard  of  life,  society  has  gone  as  far  wrong 
as  In  Its  neglect  to  secure  the  necessary  basis  of 
any  genuine  Industrial  efficiency  or  decent  so- 
cial order.  ...  It  Is  from  this  constantly  aris- 
ing surplus  .  .  .  that  will  have  to  be  found 
the  new  capital  which  the  community  day  by  day 
needs  for  the  perpetual  Improvement  and  In- 
crease of  Its  various  enterprises,  for  which  we 
shall  decline  to  be  dependent  on  the  usury-ex- 
acting financiers." 

"  For  raising  the  greater  part  of  the  revenue 
required,  the  Party  demands  the  direct  taxa- 
tion of  Incomes  above  the  necessary  cost  of 
family  maintenance;  and,  for  the  requisite  ef- 
fort to  pay  off  the  national  debt,  the  direct  taxa- 
tion of  private  fortunes  both  during  life  and 
at  death.  .  .  .  The  Income  tax  on  large  in- 
[159] 


comes  to  rise  to  sixteen  and  even  nineteen  shill- 
ings in  the  pound,  [that  is  to  say  from  eighty 
to  ninety-five  cents  on  the  dollar].  .  .  .  The 
Labour  Party  stands  for  a  special  capital  levy 
to  pay  off,  if  not  the  whole,  a  very  substantial 
part  of  the  entire  national  debt." 
—  From  the  British  Labour  Party  Programme. 

"  The    Watchwords    shall    be    *  Conscription    of 
Wealth  and  Equality  of  Income  '  to  be  realized  by: 

"  (a)  Expropriation  of  private  landowners 
and  capitalists.  No  compensation  beyond  an 
ample  provision  against  individual  hardship, 
(b)  All  men  and  women  willing  to  work  to  be 
paid,  even  when  their  work  happens  to  be  not 
needed,  just  as  soldiers  are  paid  when  they  arc 
not  fighting.  Equal  payment  for  all  to  be  the 
result  at  which  reorganization  shall  aim.  (c) 
Instead  of  the  present  capitalistic  methods  of 
production,  ownership  by  the  state:  man- 
agement BY  the  workers.  This  shall  be 
applied  immediately  to  the  case  of  Mines,  Rail- 
ways, Shipping,  Shipbuilding,  and  Engineering, 
Electric  Light  and  Power,  Gas  and  Water  .  .  . 

"  Those  classes  who  have  sanctioned  and  ap- 
proved the  conscription  of  men,  cannot  on  any 
moral  ground  object  to  the  conscription  of 
money  —  expropriation  of  property  owners  for 
national  purposes.  Indeed  the  latter  has  jus- 
tifications which  cannot  be  invoked  for  the 
former." 

•—  From  the  Lanshury-Herald  Programme. 
[i6o] 


Conscription  of  Wealth  —  the  right  of  the  Stat6 
to  demand  from  its  citizens  the  contributions  neces- 
sary for  the  maintenance  of  its  pubHc  service  —  is 
a  principle  as  old  as  organized  society.  Taxation  is 
conscription  of  wealth.  But  we  should  go  woefully 
astray  if  we  assumed  from  this  that  the  introduction 
of  military  conscription  as  it  is  now  known  in  Eng- 
land has  had  no  effect  in  changing  old  ideas  as  to 
the  rights  of  the  community  over  the  property  of  the 
individual.  Mihtary  conscription  has  created  a 
revolution  in  those  ideas,  a  moral  revolution  in  which 
the  whole  institution  of  private  property  is  involved. 

Conscription  of  wealth  in  the  form  of  taxation 
for  public  purposes  has  always  heretofore  operated 
within  very  definite  limits,  and  deliberate  seizure  of 
property  for  the  purpose  of  creating  equality  in  the 
distribution  of  wealth,  would,  until  the  war,  have 
been  regarded  as  well  outside  those  limits,  and  as 
morally  perfidious.  This  is  one  of  those  cases  in 
which  the  essence  of  the  distinction  between  very 
different  things  is  a  difference  of  degree. 

The  sudden  introduction  of  conscription  into 
Britain  has  had  certain  moral  and  psychological  ef- 
fects which  the  institution  may  not  have  had  in  con- 
tinental countries,  for  the  simple  reason  that  in  them 
its  introduction  has  been  for  the  most  part  a  process 
extending  over  generations.  Gradual  habituation 
will  lead  us  to  accept  almost  any  situation  without 
much  vivid  questioning.  In  England,  conscription 
came  upon  the  people  without  historical  preparation, 
and  not,  incidentally,  by  selective  draft  with  gen- 
erous exemptions.     It  was  an  institution  they  had 

[i6i] 


always  looked  upon  as  alien,  and  one  which  they 
boasted  "  Englishmen  would  never  stand,"  Under 
it,  a  whole  generation  of  young  Englishmen  were 
suddenly  confronted  with  the  fact  that  their  lives 
did  not  belong  to  themselves ;  that  each  owed  his  life 
to  the  state.  But  if  he  owed  life  itself  to  the  com- 
munity, what  did  the  state  owe  to  him?  And  if  he 
must  give,  or  at  least  risk,  everything  that  he  pos- 
sessed, to  life  itself,  were  others  giving  or  risking 
what  they  possessed?  Here  was  new  light  on  the 
institution  of  private  property.  If  the  life  of  each 
belongs  to  the  community,  then  assuredly  does  his 
property. 

For  the  great  masses  of  the  British  working 
classes,  conscription  has  solved  the  ethical  problem 
involved  in  the  confiscation  of  capital.  The  eighth 
commandment  no  longer  stands  in  the  way  as  it  stood 
so  long  in  the  case  of  a  people  still  religiously  minded, 
and  still  feeling  the  weight  of  Puritan  tradition. 

For  generations  in  modern  states  —  certainly 
since  the  industrial  revolution  —  there  has  been  fair 
presumption  that  the  aggregate  wealth  production 
would  suffice  for  the  abolition  of  poverty,  if  approxi- 
mate equality  in  distribution  could  be  achieved.  But 
the  various  schemes  looking  to  that  end  have  for 
generations  been  paralysed  by  scruples  largely  con- 
cerned with  the  institution  of  Private  Property. 
Most  plans  of  redistribution  of  wealth  have  come 
to  naught  because  of  the  fact  that  purchase  and  com- 
pensation involves  taking  from  the  individual  a  dol- 
lar and  giving  him  a  hundred  cents.  In  purchasing 
watered  railroad  stock,  or  concerns  like  the  Standard 

[162] 


Oil  Company;  one  would  be  creating  a  new  class  of 
claimants  upon  the  wealth  of  the  community  while 
destroying  an  old.  It  was  a  real  difficulty,  though 
a  smaller  one  than  it  seemed  to  earlier  critics  of  so- 
cialism. 

The  assumed  ethical  impossibility  of  confiscation 
was  one  of  the  great  moral  buttresses  of  the  older  or- 
der. The  present  writer  remembers  hearing  an  old 
Victorian  Liberal  make  a  statement  of  the  moral  case 
against  Socialism  in  some  such  terms  as  these: 

"  Though  he  happens  to  be  rich,  and  I  hap- 
pen to  be  poor ;  though  he  does  not  want  it  and  I 
do;   though   I   am  hungry  and  he   is   gorged; 
though  my  children  starve  while  he  overfeeds 
his  dogs  —  all  has  nothing  to  do  with  it.      The 
money  is  not  mine.     If  I  take  it  I  rob.     Tup- 
pence pilfered  from  a  millionaire  is  as  much 
theft  as  when  snatched   from  the   old  apple- 
woman.     Once  admit  that  because  '  I  want  it ' 
I  may  take  it,  and  society  will  become  a  den 
of  thieves,  not  less  so  because  the  thieves  use 
long  words  about  their  theft.     If  we  cover  up 
the  moral  fact  with  them,  the  end  has  begun. 
Expropriation,  Confiscation,  the  Social  Sanction 
of  the  Majority,  may  be  such  words.     But  the 
simple  imperative  is  unshaken;  it  remains  ab- 
solute :     '  Thou  shalt  not  steal.'  " 
That  had  a  very  strong  and  deep  appeal  to  the 
Victorian  non-conformists  (many  of  them  workmen) 
to  whom  it  was  addressed.     It  would  have  very  little 
appeal  if  addressed  today  to  an  audience  of  English 
working  men  conscripts.     The  retort  is  too  obvious. 

[163] 


If  it  is  theft  to  take  a  man's  money  for  the  purposes 
of  the  State,  is  it  any  less  theft  to  take  his  Hfe? 
Military  conscription  implies  that  we  may  for  the 
general  good  take  and  even  destroy  the  person  of  the 
citizen.  Why  not  then  his  property?  Is  that  more 
sacred?  The  individual  must  be  ready  to  give  his 
life  for  the  general  good  —  we  have  the  right  to 
compel  him  to  do  so.  But  we  have  not  the  same 
right  over  his  possessions!  Indeed  the  philosophy 
which  attempts  to  justify  military  conscription  gives 
to  the  community  greater  powers  over  the  individual 
than  even  the  powers  of  life  and  death.  It  asserts 
the  right  of  the  State  to  compel  the  citizen  not  only 
to  give  his  own  life,  but  to  take  the  lives  of  others, 
whatever  his  personal  conviction  as  to  the  cause 
which  those  others  represent.  Thus  the  political 
doctrine  by  which  alone  Conscription  can  be  justified 
demands  of  the  individual  citizen  for  the  purposes 
of  the  community  the  surrender  of  all  his  freedoms, 
convictions,  person,  life,  conscience — but  not 
money. 

Just  compare  the  powers  which  the  government 
is  now  exercising  for  a  military  purpose  and  those 
which  it  would  exercise  in  assuring  a  better  distribu- 
tion of  wealth  for  social  purposes.  (And  it  should 
be  remembered  that  the  powers  now  exercised  are 
inforced  by  modern  states  not  only  on  behalf  of 
foreign  policies  which  are  purely  defensive,  but  on 
behalf  of  policies  like  those  which  led  Italy  to  war 
for  the  conquest  of  Tripoli,  Russia  to  war  with 
Japan,  or  like  those  which  led  England  to  war  for 
the  conquest  of  the  Boer  Republics.)      Military  Con- 

[164] 


scriptlon  empowers  the  State  to  say  to  Its  citizens : 

*'  The  government  having  decided  to  go  to 
war,  you  are  to  leave  your  wife  and  your  chil- 
dren and  their  future  to  our  care.     You  shall, 
if  necessary,  give  us  your  life  without  question. 
More,  we  demand  that  you  shall  kill  as  many  of 
the  enemy  citizens  as  possible;  if  you  refuse  we 
shall  use  compulsion  to  the  extent  of  imprison- 
ment, torture  or  death." 
The  government  of  every  great  state  in  the  world 
now  possesses  and  exercises  to  the  full  those  powers. 
What  would  be  the  powers  which  a  Socialist  gov- 
ernment, commissioned  to  ensure  a  better  distribu- 
tion of  the  national  wealth,  would  require  for  its 
purpose?     Just  compare  its  demand  upon  the  indi- 
vidual citizen  with  that  made  now  by  Conscription. 
It  would  in  effect  say  to  that  small  minority  which 
possesses  the  wealth: 

*'  The  government  having  been  authorized  to 
take  measures  to  liberate  the  country  from  evil 
economic  conditions,  asks  as  your  contribution  to 
that  purpose,  not  any  positive  act,  (as  it  would 
ask  you  to  kill  foreigners  under  your  military 
obligation)  ;  nor  does  it  ask  you  to  give  your 
life,  or  freedom,  or  conviction;  nor  does  it  ask 
you  to  accept  poverty,  because  its  object  is  to 
exempt  all  from  poverty;  it  asks  you  merely  to 
acquiesce  in  its  withdrawal  of  its  protection  of 
your  surplus  and  unneeded  wealth,  the  reten- 
tion of  which  involves  the  slavery  of  so  many 
of  your  countrymen." 
This  parallel  is,  as  we  know,  being  very  commonly 
[165] 


drawn.     Does  any  one  believe  it  can  leave  the  Insti- 
tution of  private  property  unaffected? 

The  London  Herald  at  the  time  of  the  publication 
of  the  Programme  from  which  an  extract  is  given 
at  the  head  of  this  chapter,  commented  on  the  pro- 
posal for  the  conscription  of  the  public  utilities  in 
these  terms: 

"  There  is  at  least  one  class  who  are  estopped 
from  objecting  to  it  on  moral  grounds.  That 
class  are  the  people  who  have  defended  mili- 
tary conscription.  And  they  happen  to  be  thpse 
in  possession  of  the  wealth  it  is  proposed  to 
conscribe  —  or  the  machinery  of  profiteering. 
Indeed  the  phrase  Conscription  of  Wealth,  al- 
though perhaps  the  three  words  that  are  des- 
tined to  play  the  largest  part  in  <:he  creation  of 
the  New  Age,  is  not  an  accurate  description  of 
what  would  take  place  under  better  distribu- 
tion. The  government  would  not  '  seize ' 
wealth  At  all.  It  would  prevent  its  being 
seized  by  the  profiteers;  would  cease  to  spend 
its  energies  in  protecting  profiteers,  in  enforc- 
ing the  Laws  which  alone  make  capitalist 
profits  possible. 

"  Moreover,  there  is  this  point  which  should 
be  made  clear :  To  say  that  military  conscrip- 
tion has  disposed  of  the  moral  objection  to  Con- 
fiscation without  compensation,  does  not  mean 
that  military  conscription  merely  enables  the 
advocates  of  confiscation  to  silence  critics  by  a 
dialectical  point,  a  tu  quoque  shutting  up  a  pro- 
test against  one  wrong  by  citing  the  existence 
[166] 


of  a  greater  one;  still  less  that  the  Conscription 
of  Wealth  based  on  the  right  of  each  to  a  fair 
share  of  the  wealth  he  does  his  part  in  creating, 
is  in  any  way  a  moral  justification  of  military 
conscription.  For  while  there  can  be  no  moral 
defence  of  military  conscription  which  does  not 
also  justify  the  confiscation  of  private  property 
for  public  ends  —  or  the  refusal  to  accord  pro- 
tection to  certain  forms  of  private  gain  —  this 
latter  in  no  way  justifies  the  military  institution. 
Morally  the  state's  right  to  take  the  lives  of  its 
citizens  must  include  the  right  to  retake  the 
money  they  have  '  absorbed  '  from  the  com- 
munity. But  the  right  to  restore  wealth  by  no 
sort  of  sophistry  can  be  made  to  include  the 
right  to  take  life.  As  things  stand  we  have  al- 
lowed the  militarists  so  to  distort  a  social  prin- 
ciple as  to  leave  out  what  is  good  and  might 
make  for  the  general  welfare,  but  to  apply  what 
is  bad  and  tells  most  heavily  against  the 
workers." 

It  is  not  to  be  assumed  from  the  foregoing  that 
wild  schemes  of  confiscation  will  ever  be  attempted. 
But  the  change  of  moral  attitude  towards  enterprises 
of  private  profit  and  their  relation  to  the  community 
will  involve  a  profound  change  in  the  terms  upon 
which  the  state  purchase  of  public  utilities  will  be 
made.  Some  form  of  purchase  is  likely  to  prove 
both  easier  and,  in  the  end,  less  wasteful  perhaps, 
than  expropriation.  It  is  a  matter  of  bargain.  The 
newly  awakened  sense  on  the  part  of  the  dispossessed 

[167] 


of  the  moral  right  of  expropriation,  and  the  newly 
awakened  sense  on  the  part  of  the  possessors,  that 
such  a  right  might  very  well  be  exercised,  are  an 
assurance  that  the  conditions  of  purchase  will  be 
economically  possible  and  advantageous  for  the  com- 
munity. The  chastening  effect  of  this  newer  atti- 
tude is  seen  in  the  latest  proposals  for  dealing  with 
a  very  precious  and  very  powerful  British  interest 

—  beer.  The  reports  of  the  English,  Scottish  and 
Irish  committees  ^  on  the  conditions  under  which  the 
government  might  purchase  all  the  private  Interests 
in  the  Liquor  Trade  are  a  startling  advance  on  any 
previous  recommendations.  They  are  of  especial 
interest,  of  course,  as  indicating  principles  likely  to 
be  invoked  in  other  cases  of  state  purchase.  The 
main  principles  laid  down  by  the  English  Liquor 
Purchase  Committee  under  Lord  Sumner  —  a  Com- 
mittee which  Included  the  Permanent  Secretary  of 
the  Treasury  and  two  eminent  Public  Accountants 

—  are  of  general  application.  It  Is  proposed  (I) 
to  take  as  the  basis  the  average  net  profits  of  the 
four  years  preceding  the  war;  (11)  to  fix  what  we 
may  call  the  pre-war  price  at  a  certain  number  of 
years'  purchase  (In  this  case  normally  15)  ;  (Hi)  to 
scale  down  the  cash  price  so  arrived  at  In  proportion 
to  the  ascertained  fall  In  general  capital  values  be- 
tween August,  19 14,  and  the  date  of  settlement; 
(Iv)  to  give  in  full  discharge  Government  securities 
that  would  then  and  there  sell  for  such  a  sum;  and 
(v)  to  leave  this  purchase  price  for  each  concern 
to  be  judicially  allocated  among  all  interests,  deben- 

*  Sec  British  government  document  Cd.  9042. 
[168] 


ture-holders,  preference  and  ordinary  shareholders, 
and  what  not,  according  to  the  relative  security  and 
market  value  of  their  several  holdings.  These  pro- 
posals, which  avoid  both  war  depreciation  and  war 
inflation  of  profits,  are  of  great  importance.  Any 
joint-stock  company  —  or,  rather,  the  debentures 
(bonds)  and  shares  (stocks)  which  together  make 
up  the  entire  interest  of  a  joint-stock  company  — 
may  be  equitably  transferred  from  private  to  public 
ownership  on  similar  principles  of  compensation  ac- 
cording to  pre-war  profits  and  so  many  years'  pur- 
chase, reduced  to  the  scale  of  present  capital  values, 
whether  the  business  be  transport,  the  extraction  of 
coal,  the  brewing  of  beer  or  the  issue  of  life  assur- 
ance  policies.     As    one    commentator   points   out,* 

The  Nev}  Statesman.  It  is  noteworthy  that  the  Committee  sum- 
marily disposes  of  the  claims  often  put  forward  (a)  that  the  de- 
benture-holders, at  any  rate,  should  be  given  an  undiminished 
income  for  ever  in  the  much  more  valuable  Government  securities; 
(b)  that  the  expropriated  stockholders  should  be  given  an  "un- 
depreciated "  capital  value,  and  thus  be  exempted  from  the  common 
lot  of  investors  who  find  that  the  number  of  years'  purchase  that 
they  can  get  for  their  dividends  has  (owing  merely  to  the  rise 
in  the  current  rate  of  interest)  fallen  by  25  per  cent;  (c)  that  the 
owners  of  the  great  stocks  of  spirits,  now  worth  some  ninety  million 
pounds  more  than  they  cost  in  1914,  should  be  allowed  to  retain 
this  huge  "  unearned  increment,"  in  addition  to  being  compensated 
for  their  trading  profits.  The  Scottish  Committee  would  bring 
them  under  the  principle  of  the  Excess  Profits  Duty,  and  take  80 
per  cent,  for  the  Exchequer.  But  when  all  equitable  allowances 
and  deductions  are  made,  the  property  to  be  transferred  to  the 
State  —  the  amount  of  the  substitution  of  Government  securities  for 
debentures  and  share  certificates  —  is  estimated,  for  the  United 
Kingdom,  at  between  400  and  500  million  pounds,  subject  to  the 
scaling-down  in  proportion  to  general  depreciation  of  capital  values 
—  at  present  about  25  per  cent. —  and  offset  by  numerous  credit 
items  (such  as  the  fifty  million  pounds  Excess  Profits  Duty  on  the 
whisky  stocks).  One  member  onh*,  among  all  three  Committees, 
thought  the  compensation  too  small  (Mr.  Thomas  O'Donnell).  On 
the  other  hand,  Mr.  Adamson,  M.P.,  now  the  chairman  of  the  Par- 
liamentary Labour  Party,  records  his  dissent  on  the  ground  that 
it  is  excessive. 

[169] 


such  transaction  or  all  the  transactions  put  together, 
whilst  they  would  keep  the  accountants  busy,  and 
necessitate  some  reprinting  of  security  documents, 
would  not  mean  any  increase  (other  than  merely 
nominal)  in  the  National  Debt,  and  no  increase  in 
the  interest  charge ;  would  not  necessarily  involve  any 
cash  payments;  nor  cause  disturbance  of  the  market 
for  securities. 

Along  some  such  lines  as  the  foregoing,  we  may 
expect  great  plans  of  nationalization  in  the  near  fu- 
ture. Mr.  Sidney  Webb's  organ  has  already  an- 
nounced that  we  may  soon  expect  the  government 
to  make  public  its  decision  to  nationalize  the  rail- 
ways and  canals.  It  is  already  clear  that  the  sixteen 
great  "  super-power  stations,"  which  are  to  generate 
electric  light,  heat  and  power  for  the  whole  king- 
dom, must  be  erected  and  owned  by  the  State  itself, 
with  the  whole  existing  municipal  and  joint-stock 
electric  plant  unified,  under  local  management,  in  a 
common  distributive  system.  With  the  railways  and 
the  supply  of  electricity  in  public  hands,  it  will  hardly 
be  possible  to  retransfer  the  coal  mines  to  the  colliery 
companies,  which  are  themselves  rapidly  fusing  and 
combining.  What  is  to  happen  to  joint-stock  life 
assurance  and  banking  may  not  yet  seem  so  plain, 
but  opinion  is  apparently  ripening  towards  drastic 
change. 

We  may  take  it  as  fairly  certain  that  every  effort 
will  be  made  to  avoid  direct  confiscation  of  property 
as  a  source  of  public  funds,  and  to  look  instead  to 
the  absorption  of  personal  income.  A  millionaire's 
railroad  stock  will  not  be  taken  from  him,  but  his 

[170] 


income  may  be  taxed  ninety  per  cent.  More  and 
more  will  unearned  increment  be  absorbed  by  the 
community.  With  the  railroads,  public  communica- 
tions, and  great  public  utilities  all  in  public  hands, 
able,  by  the  manipulation  of  rates  to  control  very 
largely  the  direction  of  development  in  industry; 
with  a  progressive  income  tax,  twenty  years  or  so 
would  probably  see  the  "  painless  "  absorption  by 
the  community  of  a  vast  body  of  profits,  ("  economic 
rent  "),  now  falling  into  private  hands. 

Equality  of  income  as  an  ideal  of  the  future  de- 
mocracy bears  a  relation  to  the  financial  condition 
of  the  European  belligerent  states,  as  they  will  exist 
after  the  war,  which  is  not  perhaps  generally  appre- 
ciated. The  aim  of  equality  will  have  behind  it  the 
push  of  forces  that  are  more  than  moral.  For,  the 
heavier  the  indebtedness  of  the  European  States,  the 
more  will  they  be  compelled  to  resort  to  ruthless 
taxation  of  surplus  wealth  as  the  only  alternative  to 
repudiation;  and  obviously  that  process  has  only  to 
go  on  long  enough  to  end  in  equalization  of  income. 
With  that  result  achieved  the  problem  of  public  debt 
and  national  bankruptcy  (at  least  in  so  far  as  in- 
debtedness to  the  states'  own  citizens  is  concerned) 
would  be  solved.  For  public  loans  are  a  device  for 
perpetuating  inequality  of  income.  If  we  could 
imagine  a  public  loan  to  which  each  citizen  had  made 
an  equal  contribution,  it  would  not  matter  whether 
the  loan  were  paid  or  not.  The  State  would  tax 
each  citizen  the  same  amount  in  order  that  the  same 
citizen  might  receive  it  back  as  interest  on  his  loan. 
It  would  be  simpler  to  let  him  do  the  mental  book- 

[171] 


keeping  in  his  own  mind  and  dispense  with  tax- 
gatherer  and  treasury  official. 

This  truth  has  more  than  mere  fanciful  interest. 

Most  of  the  continental  belligerents  of  Europe 
have  already  reached  a  condition  of  thinly  disguised 
bankruptcy.  Austria-Hungary  for  instance,  has  al- 
ready eaten  up  four-fifths  of  its  entire  capital  value 
in  war  debt;  while  none  of  the  other  countries  falls 
short  of  one-half.  Germany,  with  about  two-thirds 
of  the  population  of  the  United  States  will  (assum- 
ing that  the  costs  go  on  a  few  months  longer)  be 
compelled,  for  the  payment  of  the  interest  on  her 
national  debt  alone, ^  to  find  annually  a  sum  of  two 
billion  dollars. 

But  a  short  time  ago  the  United  States,  with  a 
population  larger  than  that  of  Germany,  found  a 
billion  dollar  budget  for  all  purposes  of  the  national 
government,  an  intolerable  extravagance.  Today 
the  German  government  has  to  find  twice  that  sum 
for  debt  charges  alone,  before  a  mark  can  be  spent 
upon  the  actual  business  of  government.  France 
with  barely  one-third  of  the  population  of  the  United 
States  will  be  compelled  to  find  nearly  one  billion 
dollars  annually  for  debt  charges  alone,  before  any- 
thing can  be  spent  upon  pensions,  reconstruction  or 
the  work  of  government.  As  Mr.  Brougham  Vil- 
liers  has  pointed  out,^  "  every  conceivable  means 
of  raising  money,  except  that  of  putting  a  heavy  di- 

1  About  one-eighth  of  this  is  the  debt  of  the  various  states  of  the 
empire. 

2  See  "Britain  After  the  Peace"  (T.  Fisher  Unwin:  London) 
and  a  remarkable  series  of  articles  in  War  and  Peace  (London) 
for  June  and  July,  191 8. 

[172] 


rect  tax  on  the  rich,"  has  already  been  tried  on  the 
Continent.  Except  in  so  far  as  they  impose  special 
war  profit  taxes,  which  will  cease  to  yield  any  money 
at  the  end  of  the  war,  these  schemes  are  simply 
desperate  attempts  to  glean  something  from  a  field 
that  has  already  been  swept  bare  by  the  needy 
Treasuries  of  Europe.  "  We  may  be  confident,"  he 
says,  "  that  if  there  really  had  been  any  important 
source  of  revenue  that  could  have  been  taxed  with- 
out offending  the  big  landlords  and  capitalists  of 
Europe  it  would  have  been  tapped  long  before  this." 

We  may  take  it  as  absolutely  certain  that  in  the 
first  year  of  peace  Europe  must  find  at  least  $5,500,- 
000,000  by  new  taxation  or  new  loans,  if  the  interest 
on  its  war  debts  is  to  be  paid.  Within  six  months 
of  the  conclusion  of  peace,  interest  to  the  tune  of 
$2,500,000,000  must  either  be  paid  or  the  claims 
dishonoured;  and  that  in  addition  to  all  the  regular 
expenses  of  the  States,  to  the  necessary  provision 
for  discharged  soldiers,  and  to  any  money  that  may 
be  wanted  to  restore  industry  and  maintain  credit. 

Some  nations  will  be  in  a  worse  case  than  others, 
but  the  burden  of  national  indebtedness  will  every- 
where but  in  America  present  statesmen  with  a  crop 
of  problems  which  they  cannot  solve  except  by  revo- 
lutionary devices.  Other  issues  may  be  evaded  or 
postponed  by  astute  political  managers.  But  the 
necessity  of  finding  the  huge  sums  of  money  to  pay 
the  interest  on  the  War  Loans  in  a  time  of  the  gravest 
economic  disorder  and  uncertainty  cannot  be  dodged. 

Mr.  Brougham  Villiers  thinks  that  there  are  only 
three  ways  in  which  the  Governments  of  Europe  can 

[173] 


meet  this  situation:  by  admitting  bankruptcy,  and, 
either  for  a  term  of  years  or  for  good,  suspending 
payment  of  interest;  by  raising  new  loans,  or  by  mak- 
ing a  wholesale  raid  for  revenue  on  land,  capital,  war 
profits,  in  fact,  on  any  and  every  accumulation  of 
wealth  that  has  hitherto  almost  entirely  escaped 
direct  taxation.  "  They  cannot  deliberate  very  long 
upon  which  course  they  will  take,  for  interest  falls 
due  on  its  day  and  must  be  paid  on  its  day,  while 
within  six  months  another  $2,500,000,000  will  have 
become  due  and  must  be  dealt  with.  Nor  will  it  be 
possible  any  longer  to  conceal  from  the  public  the 
desperate  condition  of  European  finance.  There 
will  be  no  ravenous  war  expenditure  going  on,  giving 
excuse  for  loans  out  of  the  proceeds  of  which  any 
demand  not  provided  for  by  the  regular  taxes  can 
be  met.  They  must  decide  at  once,  and  whatever 
course  they  adopt,  it  seems  to  me,  implies  a  funda- 
mental revolution  in  the  European  system."  ^ 

FINANCES  OF  CONTINENTAL  BELLIGERENTS. 

IN   MILLIONS  OF  DOLLAKS. 

National  National  Proportion  of 

Debt  Debt      debt  to  Total 

lQt2  June,  IQ18   Capital  % 

$1,170  Empire  $34,715  Empire 

3  765  German  States      5,765  G.  States  51 

3,970  21,500                     82 

5,060  24,100                    41^. 

2,685  7,685                     47-S 

4,730  32,500                     46-4 

^  At  the  close  of  1917  M.  Louis  Marin  prepared  for  the  Chamber 
of  Deputies  in  France  an  elaborate  document,  dealing  with  the 
financial  position  of  the  various  nations  engaged  in  the  war.  As- 
suming generally  the  same  rate  of  expenditure  per  month  since  ai 
for  the  period  up  to  which  each  estimate  is  given,  Mr.  Villiers  has 
been  able  to  prepare  the  following  tables,  which  give  the  minimum 
co*t  of  the  war  to  the  great  Continental  belligerents,  assuming  that 

[174] 


National 
Capital 

Germany  $80,000 
Austria- 

Hungary      26,250 
France         58,330 
Italy             16,170 
Russia          69,000 

Amount  needed 

Revenue  to  meet  interest 

IQI2  Neiu  Debt  alone 

Germany     $   705  Empire 

1,660  States  $i>76o 

Austria-Hungary    i>070  975 

France   920  940 

Italy   570  330 

Russia    1,655  ii39o 

But  there  is  a  fourth  course  which  is  in  fact,  a  dis- 
guised form  of  repudiation  and  confiscation,  and 
which  will  almost  certainly  be  resorted  to :  Inflation 
of  the  currency  by  the  public  manufacture  of  money. 
War  finance  has  revealed  means  of  doing  this  while 
maintaining  a  fictitious  redeemability  in  gold.  This 
path  is  likely  to  be  farther  explored  with  a  conse- 
quent further  expansion  of  prices.  If  only  the  sys- 
tem can  be  maintained  long  enough,  interest  will  be 
paid,  public  debts  will  be  redeemed,  in  inflated 
money.  The  war  bond-holders  will  get  a  good  deal 
less  in  real  wealth  for  their  bonds  than  these  repre- 
sented when  the  government  accepted  and  used  the 
money.  It  will,  as  I  have  said,  be  confiscation  with- 
out compensation,  but  disguised  and  haphazard,  fall- 
ing most  heavily  upon  those  least  able  to  bear  it. 

That  process  might  imaginably  be  linked  to  the  de- 
vice of  an  international  pooling  of  Allied  war  debts. 
We  may,  for  instance,  come  to  the  rescue  of  France 
financially  by  some  plan  of  the  internationalization 
of  debt.  Such  a  plan  might  be  linked  to  the  scheme 
of  a  League  of  Nations  and  in  some  of  its  aspects 
be  attractive.     But  it  would  be  likely  to  mean  the 

it  had  ended  on  June  30th,  1918.  In  the  case  of  Germany,  an 
official  estimate  by  Dr.  Lentze,  the  German  Finance  Minister,  is 
taken  as  basis. 

[175] 


perpetuation  of  the  capitalist  system  by  international 
action,  particularly  if  the  diplomatic  tradition  of 
semi-secret  arrangements  between  states,  as  opposed 
to  public  discussion  as  between  peoples  through  rep- 
resentative machinery,  dominates  the  futu.-e  League 
of  Nations,  or  Superstate.  The  plan  would  attach 
to  that  idea  the  pull  of  great  financial  interests,  but  it 
would  be  a  factor  of  conservatism  and  authoritarian- 
ism, tending  to  make  internationahsm  the  bulwark, 
not  of  democracy,  but  reaction.  It  is  a  scheme  for 
democrats,  not  to  reject,  but  to  watch  with  every 
vigilance. 

Here  then,  will  be  the  situation  on  the  morrow  of 
war.  The  belligerent  states  will  find  themselves  still 
in  possession  of  the  main  sources  of  their  material 
wealth  (except  the  energy  of  the  best  of  their  young 
men).  The  mines,  fields  —  for  the  most  part  — 
most  of  the  factories  and  railroads  will  still  be  intact. 
Despite  the  need  of  renewing  plant  and  the  scarcity 
of  certain  raw  materials,  the  populations  will  still  be 
in  a  position  to  feed,  and  clothe  themselves.  But  the 
problem  of  re-establishing  the  precise  distribution  of 
wealth  called  for  by  the  war  debts,  will,  from  the 
nature  of  the  figures  already  given,  obviously  be  be- 
yond them.  Devices  of  disguise  will  be  resorted  to. 
Public  debts  will  be  paid  in  inflated  —  that  is  in  partly 
fictitious  —  money.  When  paid,  much  will  be  taken 
back  in  the  form  of  income  tax.  Wealth,  which  is 
clearly  due  to  communal  activities  will  be  reserved 
for  the  community.  And  at  each  turn  the  question  of 
social  right,  in  the  light  of  the  compulsory  sacrifice 
of  life  made  by  miUions  to  whom  life  has  meant 

[176] 


most,  will  be  hotly  debated.  If  we  are  to  avoid  some 
very  evil  developments  in  ideas  and  political  conduct 
we  must  somehow  fit  our  generation  for  that  debate. 
Otherwise,  better  things  than  the  ancient  institutions 
of  militarism  and  capitalism  may  suffer  therein. 


[177! 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  SPIRIT  OF  ADVENTURE  IN  SOCIAL  CHANGE 

The  end  of  the  old  fatalism  which  implies  that  we  must 
"  take  the  world  as  we  find  it,"  and  that  we  cannot  remake  it. 
Some  of  the  results  that  we  may  expect  from  the  cheapening 
of  life,  the  contempt  of  danger,  the  re-casting  of  moral  stand- 
ards, and  the  spirit  of  revolution  which  the  war  has  produced. 
The  "  strenuous  life  "  in  times  of  peace,  and  its  social  and 
political  implications. 

"  Every  sign  of  these  terrible  days  of  war  and 
revolutionary  change,  when  economic  and  so- 
cial forces  are  being  released  upon  the  world, 
whose  effect  no  political  seer  dares  venture  to 
conjecture,  bids  us  search  our  hearts  through 
and  through  and  make  them  ready  for  the  birth 
of  a  new  day —  a  day,  we  hope  and  believe,  of 
greater  opportunity  and  greater  prosperity  for 
the  average  mass  of  struggling  men  and  women, 
and  of  greater  safety  and  opportunity  for  chil- 
dren. .  .  .  The  men  in  the  trenches  .  .  .  will, 
it  is  likely,  return  to  their  homes  with  a  new 
view  and  a  new  impatience  of  all  mere  political 
phases,  and  will  demand  real  thinking  and 
sincere  action." — Woodrow  Wilson, 

A  previous  chapter  attempted  to  indicate  one 
of  the  most   fundamental   differences  between  the 

[178] 


old  order  of  ideas  which  belonged  to  the  individualist, 
capitalist,  laissez-faire  society  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury and  those  which  are  coming  to  mark  the  twenti- 
eth century:  a  certain  social  fatalism  which  charac- 
terized the  former  is,  despite  much  Marxian  "  eco- 
nomic determinism,"  absent  from  the  latter. 

The  individualist  and  laissez-faire  political  econ- 
omy appealed  continually  to  certain  iron  "  laws," 
which  it  was  implied  men  could  not  alter,  or  at  least 
could  only  interfere  with  on  pain  of  disaster.  In- 
deed, the  greatest  mischief  of  the  individualist  con- 
ception was  not  the  implication  that  the  individual 
is  all  important.  He  is.  The  State  was  made  for 
man,  not  man  for  the  State.  The  mischief  of  the 
old  doctrine  resided  in  the  implication  that  if  the  in- 
dividual went  his  way  and  let  things  work  out  for 
themselves,  by  some  sort  of  happy  chance,  without 
any  conscious  control  of  collective  action,  things 
would  work  out  for  good. 

That  was  a  very  thinly  disguised  fatalism;  it  aban- 
doned any  real  attempt  at  conscious  control  of  the 
direction  of  society.  To  say  that  societies  grow  and 
are  not  made,  was  to  imply  that  the  progress  is 
largely  beyond  our  will.  "  Who,  by  taking  thought, 
can  add  a  cubit  to  his  stature?  " 

The  newer  attitude  is  less  helpless.  The  more 
modern  forms  of  socialism  at  least  imply  that  it  de- 
pends on  us,  or  our  conscious  action,  collectively  de- 
termined, what  kind  of  society  we  should  have.  It 
implies  that  we  are  arbiters  of  our  own  destiny;  that 
we  need  not  "  take  the  world  as  we  find  it,"  but  that 
we  can   in  large  part  make  the  world  as  we  will  it. 

[179] 


We  have  come  to  realize  that  the  direction  taken  by 
social  development  depends  largely  upon  our  minds 
and  intelligence. 

And  it  is  that  which  makes  it  important  to  enquire 
into  the  factors  which  shape  our  will. 

One  may  hear  it  asked:  What  is  the  use  of  at- 
tempting to  forecast  so  imponderable,  perhaps  in- 
calculable, a  thing  as  the  psychology  which  will  fol- 
low the  war  ? 

Has  the  war  then  taught  us  so  little  that  we  have 
failed  to  realize  that  an  indispensable  part  of  states- 
manship is  some  understanding  of  the  feelings  which 
grow  up  among  great  groups  of  men  —  feelings 
which  differing  circumstances  make  it  difficult  for 
other  groups  to  understand?  We  have  seen  Ger- 
man statesmanship  brought  to  ruin  from  a  failure  to 
take  into  due  account  so  imponderable  a  thing  as  the 
"feelings"  of  Alsatians,  Poles,  Austrian  Slavs;  or 
of  the  world  in  general  about  such  things  as  the  in- 
vasion of  Belgium  and  the  sinking  of  the  Lusitania. 
And  we  have  seen  our  own  statesmanship  almost 
wreck  our  cause  by  failure  to  anticipate  in  some  de- 
gree, the  growth  of  great  moral  forces  in  Russia;  less 
disastrously  in  Ireland.  All  the  belligerents  have 
failed,  to  their  own  cost,  to  enter  into  the  feelings  of 
certain  groups  with  whose  co-operation  their  suc- 
cess was  bound  up;  to  examine  the  ideas  of  justice 
out  of  which  those  feelings  grew.  It  is  certainly 
true  that  millions  of  Englishmen,  who  would  hon- 
estly desire  to  do  justice,  say,  to  Irishmen  or  to  Rus- 
sians, simply  cannot  understand  why  such  and  such 
Irish  and  Russian  demands  should  be  made  at  all; 

[i8o] 


and  it  is  that  failure  which  has  precipitated  political 
mistakes  for  which  we  have  paid  very  definite  costs. 

The  part  of  wisdom  is  surely  to  avoid  as  far  as 
possible  similar  failures  to  understand  what  may  be, 
to  some  of  us,  a  strange  point  of  view,  in  dealing  with 
those  millions  of  young  men  who  will  return,  as 
President  Wilson  has  warned  us,  with  "  a  new  im- 
patience." 

Previous  chapters  have  attempted  to  bring  into  re- 
lief one  great  fact:  The  demonstration  which  the 
war  has  furnished  of  the  economic  feasibility  of  col- 
lectivist  measures  on  a  large  scale;  and  the  inevitabil- 
ity of  widespread  resort  to  this  argument:  If  the 
collectivist  system  can  succeed  even  relatively  in  all 
the  strain  and  stress  of  war,  applied  in  haste  and 
without  due  preparation,  it  can  certainly  be  made  to 
succeed  when  applied  at  leisure  in  peace. 

We  have  seen  further  that  in  the  attempt  to  ensure 
success  young  men  who  have  been  called  upon  to  give, 
if  needs  be,  their  lives  for  the  future  welfare  of  their 
nation,  will  not  hesitate  to  demand  that  others  shall 
give  increasingly  of  their  surplus  wealth. 

Now  this  constitutes  a  new  fact  —  bearing  upon 
what  is  often  the  most  decisive  of  all  elements  in 
political  events :  the  element  of  Will. 

Is  such  and  such  a  thing  possible  as  a  social  ar- 
rangement? The  true  answer  so  often  is  that  it  is 
possible  if  we  believe  it  to  be  so;  impossible  if  we 
believe  it  to  be  impossible.  The  greatest  of  all  prag- 
matists  has  illustrated  what  at  first  sight  looks  like 
a  piece  of  political  Christian  Science,  in  these  terms : 

I  am  climbing  in  the  Alps  [says  William  James]  and  have 
[i8i] 


had  the  ill  luck  to  work  myself  into  a  position  from  which 
the  only  escape  is  by  a  terrible  leap.  Being  without  similar 
experience  1  have  no  evidence  of  my  ability  to  perform  it  suc- 
cessfully; but  hope  and  confidence  in  myself  make  me  sure 
that  I  shall  not  miss  my  aim,  and  nerve  my  feet  to  execute 
what,  without  those  subjective  emotions,  would  have  been 
impossible.  But  suppose  that  on  the  contrary  the  emotions 
...  of  mistrust  predominate.  .  .  .  Why  then  I  shall  hesi- 
tate so  long  that  at  last,  exhausted  and  trembling,  and  launch- 
ing myself  in  a  moment  of  despair,  I  miss  my  foothold  and 
roll  into  the  abyss.  In  this  case,  and  it  is  one  of  an  immense 
class,  the  part  of  wisdom  is  to  believe  what  one  desires; 
for  the  belief  is  one  of  the  indispensable  preliminary  condi- 
tions of  the  realization  of  its  object.  There  are  cases  where 
faith  creates  its  own  justification.  Believe,  and  you  shall  be 
right,  for  you  shall  save  yourself ;  doubt,  and  you  shall  again 
be  right,  for  you  shall  perish. 

The  very  knowledge  that  the  thing  can  be  done  will 
be  the  essential  element  in  the  formation  of  the  will 
to  do  it.  It  Is  the  element  of  fVill  which  distin- 
guishes the  condition  of  war  time,  from  the  condition 
of  peace  time. 

The  peculiarity  of  war  with  a  powerful  enemy  is 
that  he  will  not  wait.  The  Kaiser  asked,  by  the 
menace  of  his  armies,  forty  million  dollars  a  day 
from  the  British  people.  It  was  "  impossible,"  but 
he  got  it.  To  the  social  adjustments  made  necessary 
for  the  purposes  of  national  defence,  all  programmes 
and  theories  contributed.  We  have  taken  a  bit  of 
Guild  Socialism  here,  of  German  State  Socialism 
there,  of  Feudal  Paternalism  or  Eighteenth  Century 
Protectionism,  or  Advanced  Feminism  elsewhere. 
All  these  reconciliations  would  have  been  impossible 

[182] 


but  for  the  constant  pressure  of  the  enemy,  and  the 
incessant  and  insistent  need  of  defeating  him. 

In  peace  time  this  corrective  of  dissipated  effort 
and  divided  purpose  is  not  at  work.  Governments 
may  be  as  much  afraid  of  popular  destitution  as  they 
are  afraid  of  the  Germans,  but  they  are  not  afraid 
of  that  familiar  enemy  in  quite  the  same  "  he'U  break 
through  tomorrow  morning  "  kind  of  way.  To  get 
things  done  by  Governments  —  even  quite  simple 
things  —  there  must  be  an  incessant  drive  or  stimulus 
like  that  furnished  by  the  danger  of  the  enemy's  vic- 
tory :  a  stimulus  which  makes  it  possible  to  reconcile 
or  amalgamate  rival  solutions. 

We  have  demonstrated  that  the  obstacles  which 
stand  in  the  way  of  a  vast  change  for  the  better  in 
the  standard  of  living  are  not  primarily  physical  at 
all,  but  moral.  They  are  difficulties  of  will,  of  pur- 
pose. Given  the  will,  the  way  to  perform  economic 
miracles  has  a  habit  of  being  found.  We  see  that 
we  have  the  physical  means  at  our  disposal  for  the 
abolition  of  poverty,  and  that  the  one  thing  needed 
for  their  successful  employment  to  that  end  is  the 
real  determination  to  use  them  as  resolutely  and 
ruthlessly  as  we  would  use  them  for  the  defeat  of  a 
military  enemy. 

Such  a  lesson  —  once  the  feasibility  of  a  standard 
of  life  so  different  from  the  past  as  to  make  possi- 
ble a  new  era  is  plainly  manifest  —  is  not  likely 
to  be  lost  upon  a  democracy  at  last  in  earnest. 
Some  of  the  war  methods  will  be  applied  to  peace 
needs.     And  if  the  results  are  not  forthcoming  the 

[183] 


workers  will  know  that  it  is  because  the  stimulus  is 
lacking.  And  they  will  attempt  to  supply  the 
stimulus. 

"  If  you  can't  do  it,  we  shall  try  to  do  it  ourselves. 
We  know  now  that  revolutionary  methods  can  be 
made  to  work.     And  we  intend  to  try." 

Suppose  it  fails? 

We  shall  point  out,  with  bated  breath,  that  in  such 
a  contingency,  trade  will  have  been  gravely  disturbed, 
securities  will  have  fallen  In  value,  the  stock  exchange 
will  be  In  a  panic  —  and  much  more  to  the  same 
effect. 

We  shall  be  saying  it  to  men  who,  at  the  call  of 
the  nation,  have  had  to  abandon  their  civil  callings, 
often  give  up  completely  their  contemplated  careers, 
leave  their  children,  their  wives  and  dependents; 
be  ready  to  throw  everything  away.  Including  limb 
and  life;  men  who  for  years  perhaps,  have  seen  their 
comrades  give  their  lives  at  the  simple  command  of 
a  youthful  officer;  seen  tens  of  thousands  of  youths 
sacrificed  in  order  to  try  a  military  experiment  which 
failed,  as  at  Galllpoli  and  elsewhere. 

And  having  borne  all  that,  to  the  end  that  their 
children  might  know  a  new  world,  they  are  told  that 
their  attempts  to  make  it  must  be  abandoned  because 
the  money  market  might  be  disturbed. 

It  is  fairly  safe  to  say  that  they  will  be  unim- 
pressed, 

"  Suppose  it  does  fail?  Will  the  effort  cost  ten 
million  lives  ?  What  will  the  effort  cost !  Disturb- 
ance, loss  of  money,  some  discomfort,  some  hard- 

[184] 


ship?  You  tell  that  to  those  who  have  fought  for 
you  in  Flanders  and  Gallipoli?  " 

For  years  before  the  war  those  of  us  who  tried  to 
pave  the  way  to  a  world  order  which  should  render 
war  unnecessary  were  everlastingly  treated  to  a  very 
familiar  form  of  sermonizing.  If  war  was  abolished 
where  would  human  life  find  its  hardships,  dangers, 
strenuousness?  Without  its  "  bracing  "  influence  we 
should  all  become  soft,  flabby,  degenerate.  Mr. 
Roosevelt  for  a  generation  has  talked  and  written 
on  this  need  for  the  "  Strenuous  Life."  The  editor 
of  the  London  Spectator  put  the  case  in  some  such 
words  as  these :  "  Once  let  men  get  the  idea  that 
they  can  eat  and  drink  securely  in  their  pig  sties  un- 
disturbed, and  they  will  become  the  most  despicable 
of  all  creatures." 

William  James  himself  stated  the  case  in  these 
terms :  ^ 

"  The  military  party  denies  neither  the  bestiality, 
nor  the  horror,  nor  the  expense;  it  only  says  that 
these  things  tell  but  half  the  story.  It  only  says  that 
war  is  worth  these  things,  that,  taking  human  nature 
as  a  whole,  war  is  its  best  protection  against  its 
weaker  and  more  cowardly  self,  and  that  mankind 
cannot  afford  to  adopt  a  peace  economy.  .  .  .  Mili- 
tarism is  the  great  preserver  of  our  ideals  of  hardi- 
hood, and  human  life  without  hardihood  would  be 
contemptible.  .  .  .  This  natural  feeling  forms,  I 
think,  the  innermost  soul  of  army  writings.  With- 
out any  exception  known  to  me,  militarist  authors 

''■McClure's  Magazine,  August,  1910. 
[185] 


take  a  highly  mystical  view  of  their  subject,  and  re- 
gard war  as  a  biological  or  sociological  necessity." 

James  made  an  effort  to  indicate  some  "  moral 
equivalent " ;  some  method  by  which  men  normally 
without  war,  might  find  a  means  of  satisfying  their 
thirst  for  change,  adventure,  sacrifice,  and  even  dan- 
ger. He  bethought  himself  of  a  social  and  indus- 
trial conscription:  young  men  compelled  to  give  a 
year  or  two  of  service  In  dangerous  trades,  in  mines, 
sea  fishery,  life-boat  stations  and  the  like. 

But  is  not  the  opportunity  of  making  life  less  dull, 
more  adventurous,  more  full  of  hardship  and  sacri- 
fice, furnished  most  abundantly  by  vast  social  experi- 
ments which  have  in  them  the  chance  of  failure? 
Why  not  adventure,  not  into  wholesale  killings  which 
leave  mankind  pretty  much  as  it  was  before,  but  into 
changes  that  may  give  it  a  new  life? 

In  any  case  that  will  be  the  spirit  of  many  who 
will  return  from  an  experience  in  which  they  have 
been  habituated  to  great  risks,  to  a  contempt  of 
danger,  to  a  cheapening  of  life,  to  a  recasting  of 
moral  standards. 

And  those  of  us  who  have  not  been  through  their 
experience  must  at  least  show  ourselves  ready  to  try 
a  few  great  social  experiments.  The  fact  that  they 
may  fail  will  no  longer  be  an  unanswerable  argu- 
ment. In  the  opinion  of  too  many  of  those  who  are 
coming,  the  old  order  has  altogether  failed.  The 
new  can  do  no  worse. 


[i86] 


PART  III 
THE  DANGERS 


CHAPTER  I 

A   SOCIETY  OF  FREE   MEN  OR  THE   SERVILE   STATE? 

The  greater  the  degree  of  socialization,  the  more  dependent 
does  the  individual  become  upon  the  community.  Unless 
this  increased  power  of  the  community  is  used  with  restraint 
and  wisdom,  the  new  order  may  be  wrecked  by  the  crushing 
of  the  individual  personality  on  which  in  the  long  run  society 
depends.  A  social  order  which  comes  into  being  as  the  result 
of  war  measures  is  likely  to  be  strongly  marked  by  coercive 
tendencies.  If  it  is  not  to  be  in  truth  the  Servile  State,  the 
indulgence  of  present  tendencies  must  be  checked  by  a  clear 
recognition  of  their  danger.  Do  we  love  oppression  and 
coercion  for  their  own  sake?  What  present  methods  might 
mean,  if  employed  by  a  Labour  government. 

It  is  obvious  that  a  more  socialized  form  of  So- 
ciety which  Increases  the  power  of  the  community 
over  the  individual,  making,  that  Is,  each  individual 
more  and  more  dependent  upon  the  collective  de- 
cision, runs  the  risk  of  drifting  Into  errors  which  In 
the  past  made  the  great  religious  and  social  organi- 
zations which  men  created.  Instruments  for  their 
own  oppression  and  debasement.  The  greatest  of- 
fence of  those  Institutions  was  of  course,  that  by 
destroying  the  capacity  for  sane  Individual  judgment, 
upon  which  In  the  last  resort  the  quality  of  any  com- 
munity depends,  they  ended  by  rendering  men  In 
the  mass  Incapable  of  self  government.     The  hls- 

[189] 


tory  of  Europe  Is  largely  the  story  of  the  swing  be- 
tween two  failures.  The  one  has  been  over-organi- 
zation of  authority,  which  checks  the  development 
of  the  individual  personality,  and  renders  it  possible 
for  millions  to  sanction  and  approve  the  very  tyran- 
nies from  which  they  suffer  —  as  under  the  mediaeval 
church  and  the  modern  Prussian  state.  And  the 
other  failure  has  been  a  laissez-faire  and  license  tend- 
ing to  social  chaos  and  anarchy,  as  that  which  fol- 
lowed the  fall  of  Roman  authority;  or  which,  in  some 
respects,  marked  the  early  period  of  the  industrial 
revolution.  One  form  of  stating  the  permanent 
problem  of  social  organization  Is  to  say  that  It  is  the 
problem  of  the  due  adjustment  between  order  and 
freedom. 

The  danger  of  the  development  of  order  Into 
tyranny  arises  from  the  fact  that  a  degree  of  order 
and  authority  is  an  absolute  need  for  the  preserva- 
tion of  any  freedom  whatsoever.  The  strength  of 
any  tyrannical  society,  like  the  strength  of  most  evil 
institutions,  resides,  not  In  the  element  of  evil  In  it, 
but  In  the  element  of  good.  The  motives  which 
start  a  people  like  the  German  on  the  road  which 
ends  in  Prussianism,  were  assuredly  not  in  the  begin- 
ning bad  motives.  The  people  which  gave  us  the 
kindergarten,  the  most  delightful  fairy  stories  in  the 
world,  the  greatest  melodies,  did  not  fifty  years  ago 
support  a  change  of  national  policy  because  they  be- 
lieved It  would  end  in  the  drowning  of  helpless  chil- 
dren and  the  invasion  of  a  peaceful  nation.  They 
supported  their  government  because  they  had  the  in- 
stinct of  discipline,  order,  and  obedience  to  authority, 

[190] 


very  strongly  developed;  and  because  they  were  told, 
and  probably  believed,  that  the  new  policy  was  de- 
signed to  give  security  and  justice  to  their  father- 
land. If,  as  President  Wilson  has  recently  declared, 
the  unbelievable  abominations  of  lynching  are  only 
possible  by  reason  of  the  fact  that  great  American 
communities  are  indifferent  to  this  crime,  the  indif- 
ference is  not  due  to  a  liking  for  cruelty,  but  to  a 
hatred  of  negro  crime. 

The  fact  that  oppressions  usually  begin  with  the 
best  of  motives  is  one  great  danger.  The  good  mo- 
tive however,  is  usually  re-enforced  by  one  which  is 
less  defensible :  the  hatred  of  those  who  disagree 
with  us.  The  populations  of  sixteenth  century 
Europe  who  massacred  Protestants,  or  made  the 
burning  alive  of  heretics  a  public  holiday,  may  have 
argued  to  themselves  that  they  were  doing  it  in  order 
to  glorify  God,  and  to  protect  society  from  error. 
But  it  would  be  truer  to  say  that  they  killed  heretics 
because  they  hated  them.  The  hatred  of  the  herd 
for  the  man  of  unusual  belief  is  a  quite  real  and 
definite  fact  in  human  nature. 

It  is  related  to  the  further  fact  which  we  have  to 
take  into  account,  namely,  that  men  have  naturally 
no  liking  for  intellectual  freedom  —  a  real  desire 
that  is  to  accord  freedom  of  expression  for  views 
with  which  we  do  not  disagree,  views  which  we  re- 
gard as  mischievous,  wicked,  dangerous  and  im- 
moral. We  naturally  desire  to  see  the  dissemina- 
tion of  such  views  restrained,  and  we  do  not  readily 
believe  that  any  good  can  come  of  their  expression.^ 

^  It  is  not  possible  to  make  the  ordinary  moral  man  underttaod 
[191] 


Which  means  that  the  real  justification  of  intellectual 
freedom  is  neither  obvious  nor  easy  of  general  un- 
derstanding; that  the  truth  for  which  Socrates 
pleaded  is  as  far  from  recognition  by  our  democra- 
cies as  it  was  by  the  Athenian  democracy  more  than 
two  thousand  years  ago. 

The  real  defence  of  freedom  of  discussion  is  that 
it  is  necessary  for  the  formation  of  sound  judgment; 
that  our  minds  are  so  made  that  unless  we  hear 
from  time  to  time  "  the  other  side  "^ —  even  though 
on  the  whole  that  side  be  wrong  —  we  cannot  see  the 
truth  of  our  own  side ;  put  the  necessary  qualifications 
to  our  conclusions,  be  anything  but  unbalanced, 
"  wrong,"  in  fact. 

Now  that  is  a  very  ancient  thesis;  we  learned  it 
from  Socrates,  from  Milton,  Mill;  free  and  demo- 
cratic states  are  supposed  to  be  founded  upon  it;  we 
support  it  vociferously  when  stated  in  the  abstract; 
it  is  part  of  the  battle  cry  of  the  war,  and  the  fact 
that  the  German  doctrine  does  not,  in  practice  at 
least,  admit  it,  constitutes  our  main  indictment 
thereof. 

Yet  we  do  not  believe  this  thesis  the  least  in  the 
world.  For  whenever  a  crisis  comes  in  which  it  is 
above  all  necessary  to  keep  a  clear  head  and  a  sound 

what  toleration  and  liberty  really  mean.  He  will  accept  them  verb- 
ally with  alacrity,  even  with  enthusiasm,  because  the  word  tolera- 
tion has  been  moralized  by  eminent  Whigs;  but  what  he  means  by 
toleration  is  toleration  of  doctrines  that  he  considers  enlightened, 
and,  by  liberty,  liberty  to  do  what  he  considers  right;  that  is,  he 
does  not  mean  toleration  or  liberty  at  all;  for  there  is  no  need  to 
tolerate  what  appears  enlightened  or  to  claim  liberty  to  do  what 
most  people  consider  right.  Toleration  and  liberty  have  no  sense 
or  use  except  as  toleration  of  opinions  that  are  considered  damnable, 
and  liberty  to  do  what  seems  wrong. —  (Preface  to  "The  Shewing 
up  of  Blanco  Posnet")   George  Bernard  Shaw. 

[192] 


judgment,  and  discipline  our  passions  with  a  little  ra- 
tionalism, we  throv/  the  whole  thing  overboard. 
Our  behaviour  shows  that  our  real  attitude  to  intel- 
lectual freedom  is  this :  "  It  may  be  a  very  enter- 
taining luxury  in  the  small  problems  that  don't  par- 
ticularly matter,  but  in  the  great  crises,  in  those  de- 
cisions upon  which  the  future  of  the  country  rests, 
freedom  of  discussion  must  be  ruthlessly  suppressed." 
Thus,  the  editor  who  in  France  or  in  this  country, 
should  advance  the  argument  that  the  orderly  devel- 
opment of  Europe  in  the  future  could  be  more  se- 
curely obtained  by  a  moderate  settlement  than  by  a 
punitive  one;  who,  adapting  President  Wilson's 
phrase,  should  declare  victory  dangerous  because 
German  freedom  and  democracy  have  more  to  hope 
from  a  stalemate  than  from  defeat  —  such  an  one 
would  be  severely,  perhaps  ferociously  punished 
for  "  defeatism,"  pro-Germanism,  sedition.  What 
we  really  believe  is  that  discussion  of  such  a  ques- 
tion as  that  raised  by  President  Wilson  in  191 6,  or 
as  to  the  wisdom  of  meeting  enemy  socialists,  as  to 
intervention  in  Russia,  the  recognition  of  the  Bol- 
sheviks, air  raid  reprisals,  the  character  of  the  peace 
terms  and  a  hundred  and  one  other  decisions,  con- 
nected with  the  waging  of  the  war  and  the  making 
of  the  peace,  should  not  be  allowed. 

Now  it  may  well  be  that  this  decision  as  to  the 
danger  of  public  discussion  is  the  right  one;  that 
such  discussion  should  be  limited  to  small  matters, 
and  that  in  great  ones  the  government  should  have 
the  right  and  the  power  to  compel  compliance  with 
its  view. 

[193] 


But  my  point  is  that  that  decision  itself  has  been 
arrived  at  without  discussion.  It  is  simply  ridicu- 
lous to  say  that  we  have  weighed  and  answered  the 
arguments  of  Mill  and  Socrates  about  the  need  of 
discussion  for  the  discovery  of  the  right  course. 
We  should  never  dream  of  bothering  ourselves  with 
their  musty  old  arguments.  As  manly,  red-blooded 
and  patriotic  folk  we  have  a  very  strong  feeling  in- 
deed about  these  cowardly  pacifists  and  their  snivel- 
ling talk  of  being  kind  to  the  dear,  good  Germans, 
and  we  are  determined  that  anything  resembling  their 
pestiferous  doctrines  —  even  though  covered  up  with 
high  brow  intellectualism  —  shall  be  stamped  out 
without  mercy.  To  want  to  argue  about  it  is  itself 
a  proof  of  pro-Germanism. 

And  we  don't  argue  about  it;  we  lock  the  arguer 
up. 

We  have  come  to  have  a  very  strong  feeling  about 
this  thing,  and  have  acted  on  that  feeling,  not  be- 
cause we  even  pretend  to  have  thrashed  It  out,  pro 
and  con.  In  our  minds.  Again,  the  very  disposi- 
tion so  to  do  would  condemn  us  as  indifferent  pa- 
triots.^ 

1  In  the  New  York  Times  Magazine  of  April  7,  1918,  Professor 
Alfred  M.  Brooks,  Professor  of  Fine  Arts  in  the  University  of  In- 
diana, publishes,  "  at  the  request  of  the  National  Security  League," 
an  article  telling  how  we  may  detect  traitors  who,  he  warns,  will 
all  "  meet  a  traitor's  fate."  In  a  general  way,  he  tells  us,  they 
may  be  known  by  the  fact  that:  "They  seek  to  darken  all  counsel 
by  words.  They  pride  themselves  on  calm  of  judgment  and  warn 
us  against  '  hysteria '  as  the  deadliest  sin  of  the  age.  Heat  of 
feeling,  and  force  of  language  in  connection  with  the  Germans' 
taking  hostages,  or  putting  women  and  children  in, the  front  line 
of  their  advance  so  that  the  enemy  shall  have  to  shoot  down  their 
own  wives  and  babies,  is  '  hysteria,'  according  to  them. 

"  The  arguments  and  assertions  of  this  class  all  go  back  to  a  few 
formulas  easy  to  learn,  and  easy  to  detect  wheoever  the  war  if 

[194] 


But  that  feeling  upon  which  we  have  acted  can  at- 
tach itself  to  other  things  besides  the  partisanship  of 
war.  The  past  has  taught  us  that  it  can  attach  it- 
self as  violently  to  the  partisanship  of  religion;  and 
Russia  is  teaching  us,  as  France  and  other  countries 
have  taught  us  in  the  past,  that  it  can  attach  itself  to 
the  partisanship  of  social  upheavals.  Freedom  of 
discussion  as  a  principle  stands  in  the  way  of  satisfy- 
ing a  deep,  urgent,  clamant  thirst  or  desire ;  the  de- 
sire to  dominate  those  who  challenge  our  will,  who 
oppose  what  we  believe  is  right.     That  desire  is  a 

broached.  Once  familiar  with  these  formulas  and  we  have  an  un- 
failing test  of  the  actual,  as  well  as  the  potential,  traitor;  a  reagent, 
so  to  speak,  which  immediately  makes  known  the  presence  of 
treason." 

The  most  damning  formula  of  all,  he  tells  us,  is  "  We  should 
forgive  our  enemies."  Every  one  capable  of  pronouncing  that  "  is 
an  enemy  of  the  United  States."  Other  tests  are  less  sweeping. 
Yet  all  belong  to  the  same  group;  the  group  made  up  of  pacifists 
and  all  other  pro-Germans.  "  To  waste  breath  distinguishing  be- 
tween these  two  reminds  one  of  Dr.  Johnson's  famous  remark  upon 
the  futility  of  discussing  precedence  in  the  case  of  a  flea  and  a 
louse. 

"  The  only  safe  rule  is  to  regard  all  of  these  as  unconditional 
traitors.  But  what  we  need  more  than  rules  for  regarding  them 
is  a  rule  for  detecting  them.  The  lair  of  these  craven  beasts  is 
everywhere.  At  one  time  he  is  an  ex-college  President,  and  again 
he  is  an  editor.  Now  he  is  a  minister,  now  a  professor,  now  a 
grade  teacher.  Frequently  he  is  the  well-to-do  citizen,  in  business, 
or  retired;  sometimes  the  rich  widow  of  a  publisher,  or  a  judge. 
Every  community  has  some  of  them ;  known  or  doubtful  suspects 
they  may  be  termed.  Every  one  of  them  is  the  enemy  of  humanity, 
and  there  are  three  excuses,  none  of  them  satisfactory,  which  can  be 
put  forth  in  behalf  of  these  craven  souls:  The  poor  excuse  of 
natural  dulness;  the  poorer  excuse  of  wishing  to  be  absolutely  fair, 
of  seeing  every  side,  and  so,  in  the  end,  taking  none ;  the  poorest 
excuse  of  all,  that,  as  so  many  of  them  still  say,  of  '  just  not  being 
able  to  read  about  the  war,  it  is  so  terrible.'  All  three  are  equally 
foolish  and  equally  to  be  feared.  The  point  to  be  remembered  is 
that  a  fool  is  always  Satan's  ready  tool.  Whatever  we  do  we 
should  never  allow  the  gentle  answer  of  the  Secret  Americans  to 
turn  away  our  wrath,  or  their  self-assumed  cloak  of  innocence  and 
martyrdom  to  deceive  us.  Ever\'  one  of  them  is  a  blubbering 
sentimentalist  or  a  hypocrite.  In  either  case  they  are  the  comfort- 
er* of  Germany  and  our  enemies." 

[195] 


fact  in  human  nature  like  hunger,  thirst,  lust,  anger, 
and  we  must  face  what  that  fact  is  likely  to  mean  in 
the  "  new  social  order." 

We  are  often  led  to  neglect  any  serious  considera- 
tion of  what  these  repressions,  when  employed  by  a 
more  socialized  order  of  society,  might  mean,  be- 
cause we  say  to  ourselves  that  their  present  employ- 
ment is  merely  temporary,  strictly  for  the  purposes 
of  war,  and  that  peace  will  see  the  restoration  of  all 
the  old  freedoms;  that  the  people  do  not  willingly 
sanction  these  repressive  measures,  but  bear  them  as 
part  of  the  war  sacrifice. 

Can  we  honestly  say  that  this  last  statement  is 
true?  Have  either  the  British  or  the  American 
people  been  greatly  disturbed  by  the  repressive  meas- 
ures against  unpopular  minorities  —  the  suppression 
of  socialist  newspapers,  thirty  years'  sentences  for 
Pacifist  clergymen,  the  dismissal  of  Quaker  school 
mistresses,  the  embargo  on  the  teaching  of  German, 
or  the  playing  of  German  music;  and  the  like?  Is 
our  attitude  really  that  "  we  are  deeply  sorry  to  be 
obliged  to  proceed  against  these  socialists  and  Pa- 
cifists, and  nothing  but  the  dire  need  of  war  time 
would  induce  us  to  sanction  this  abandonment  of  the 
principles  of  freedom  "? 

We  know  of  course  that  such  a  statement  of  our 
attitude  would  be  dishonest.  We  don't  really  be- 
lieve that  the  suppression  of  German  opera  will  help 
the  boys  in  the  trenches,  or  that  to  spend  the  time  of 
our  state  legislatures  prohibiting  the  teaching  of  Ger- 
man in  our  schools  will  greatly  aid  the  offensive  on 
the  western  front.     These  things  are  not  reasoned 

[196] 


at  all;  we  do  them  for  the  same  reason  that  a  man 
swears  at  golf ;  they  are  an  expression  of  temper. 

If  that  were  all  they  might  be  harmless;  but  also 
they  are  the  introduction  of  new  principles  into  our 
state,  principles  that  can  be  applied,  by  other  parties 
in  other  circumstances,  by  the  minorities  that  now 
suffer  by  them  when  some  turn  of  circumstances  give 
these  minorities  the  power.  We  are  not  the  least 
aware  of  the  extent  to  which  bit  by  bit  we  have 
adopted  repression;  and  when  made  aware  are  in  no 
temper  particularly  to  care. 

Any  one  coming  from  the  open  air  into  a  closed 
room  where  several  persons  have  been  sitting  is  as- 
tonished to  find  that  they  do  not  notice  how  close  is 
the  atmosphere.  They  may  be  persons  liking  fresh 
air,  but  they  are  quite  unconscious  how  foul  and 
heated  that  which  they  are  breathing  has  become. 

Something  similar  to  the  surprise  of  this  person 
from  the  outside  would  probably  be  in  the  mind  of 
an  Englishman  or  an  American  coming  from  abroad 
after  an  absence  of  a  year  or  two;  or  one  who,  really 
remembering  what  was  the  general  feeling  in  respect 
of  certain  fundamental  things  in  national  life  as  it 
existed  before  the  war,  compares  it  to  that  which 
now  exists.  That  enables  him  to  realize  how  vastly 
that  feeling  has  changed,  and  how  unconscious  of  the 
change  are  the  great  mass  of  his  countrymen. 

It  is  not  —  and  the  illustration  just  used  must  not 
be  taken  as  implying  such  a  thing  —  that  the  national 
atmosphere  as  a  whole  has  become  bad.  In  many 
respects  it  is  obviously  better  than  before  the  war; 
many  very  splendid  qualities  have  been  developed; 

[197] 


"  Tens  of  thousands  of  our  young  men  have  shown 
themselves  ready  to  sacrifice  everything,  their  future, 
their  lives,  to  the  cause  of  their  country;  they  have 
gone  to  death  as  to  a  feast;  our  women-folk  have 
suffered  hardship  and  sorrow  as  readily;  where 
flagrant  luxury  and  idleness  once  reigned  there  is 
now  willing  toil  and  glad  sacrifice;  futile  divisions 
and  mean  strife  have  given  place  to  a  unity  of  na- 
tional purpose  that  it  has  not  known  in  our  genera- 
tion." All  this  is  true,  and  we  justly  enough  rejoice 
in  it. 

But  it  is  curious  that  when  we  do  this,  we  praise 
ourselves  for  just  those  qualities  which  the  Germans 
show  in  an  almost  equal  degree  —  the  readiness  of 
the  men  to  meet  death,  the  women  sorrow  and  hard- 
ship, the  whole  people  to  work  unitedly  in  the  na- 
tional purpose.  Indeed,  the  German  sacrifice  is 
heavier  than  ours;  the  loss  of  life  greater,  the  hard- 
ship greater.  The  passage  just  given  between  in- 
verted commas  is  taken  from  the  letter  of  a  German 
writer  telling  an  American  friend  what  the  war  has 
done  for  the  German  people;  and  he  added  much 
more  concerning  such  things  as  the  revival  of  religion 
through  Germany.^ 

1 A  phenomenon  which  has  been  dealt  with  by  Dr.  A.  Shadwell  in 
the  Hibbert  Journal  (July,  1916),  in  an  article  on  "German  War 
Sermons."  He  examines  fifty  sermons  preached  by  thirty  German 
clergymen,  and  these  are  his  conclusions:  — 

"  It  is  clear  from  all  this  that  the  German  Protestant  clergy  have 
seized  upon  the  war  as  a  great  opportunity  for  re-affirming  the 
moral  law  and  re-establishing  the  authority  of  religious  teaching, 
which  has  been  driven  more  and  more  into  the  background  by  the 
growth  of  materialism  and  rationalism.  They  have  a  long  score  to 
settle  on  their  own  account  with  the  forces  of  irreligion  which  have 
been  fostered,  as  they  always  are,  by  material  prosperity,  and  have 
gained  a  rapidly  increasing  hold  on  the  German  people.  .  .  . 

[198] 


But  the  net  result  In  Germany  is  the  demonstra- 
tion, to  us  at  least,  that  these  things  do  not  suffice; 
that  they  are  compatible  with  the  gradual  crystalliza- 
tion of  ends  that  are  morally  pernicious  in  themselves 
and  a  disaster  to  Germany  and  the  whole  world. 

This  war  has  abundantly  illustrated  a  truth  which 
very  many  of  us  have  suspected  for  very  long, 
namely:  that  the  exercise  of  authority,  the  repression 
of  individual  characteristics,  the  severe  regimentation 
of  peoples,  the  Prussian  form  of  society  in  fact,  are 
things  liked  for  themselves  by  very  many  who  pro- 
fess to  the  fighting  to  make  their  establishment  im- 
possible. For  four  years  throughout  Europe  we 
have  witnessed  this  paradox:  a  war  waged  for  the 
purpose  of  making  the  world  safe  for  democracy 
supported  most  ardently,  with  the  most  ferocious 
"  bitter-endism,"  by  just  those  who  in  the  past  have 
never  made  any  secret  of  their  disbelief  in  democ- 
racy; their  dislike  and  hatred  of  it  even.     This  as- 

"  At  the  same  time,  these  pulpit  utterances  must  not  be  read  as 
indicating  any  revolt  against  the  national  regime  or  any  weakening 
about  the  war.  On  the  contrary,  the  preachers  insist  on  the  neces- 
sity of  fighting  it  out,  holding  on  to  the  last,  and  suffering  all  things 
to  win.  (It  is  worthy  of  note  that  at  least  five-sixths  of  the  texts 
are  from  the  New  Testament  and  many  of  them  from  the  Epistles.) 

"  Now  it  seems  to  me  that,  taken  broadly  as  a  whole,  these  ser- 
mons reveal  a  stratum  of  thought  and  feeling  in  Germany  which 
is  not  apparent  from  newspapers  and  other  publications.  How 
deep  or  broad  it  may  be  we  cannot  tell,  but  according  to  my  experi- 
ence there  is  a  great  deal  more  of  it  than  appears  on  the  surface. 
The  German  clergy  have  not  been  preaching  to  empty  churches  dur- 
ing the  war.  And  the  essential  feature  of  this  stratum  of  thought 
is  its  maintenance  of  the  moral  law  and  the  claims  of  conscience.  .  .  . 

"  I  cannot  but  see  in  the  spirit  of  the  self-examination  and  high 
ideals  running  through  these  sermons  the  potential  elements  of  a 
strong  moral  revulsion  when  the  facts,  which  cannot  be  concealed 
for  ever  even  in  Germany,  become  known.  Ethical  principles  will 
come  into  their  own  again  when  Force  has  visibly  broken  down,  but 
not  before." 

[199] 


tounding  and  undoubted  fact  has  more  importance 
than  we  seem  disposed  to  give  to  it. 

Nothing,  perhaps,  gives  the  sincere  democrat  who 
has  supported  this  war  as  the  price  which  the  western 
democracies  must  pay  for  their  liberation,  more  un- 
easiness than  the  fact  that  its  most  earnest  advocates 
are  those  who  have  consistently  represented  the  anti- 
democratic forces  in  European  politics,  and  who 
have  always  denied  that  democratic  government, 
peace,  liberalism,  internationalism  are  desirable 
things.  If,  say,  in  Italy,  you  take  the  ImperiaHsts 
and  the  militarists  of  the  most  extravagant  type,  or 
in  France,  the  Royalists,  Nationalists  and  anti-par- 
liamentarians, in  Britain,  the  Tariffists  and  the  back- 
woods Tories,  you  will  find  them  stridently  rejoicing 
(through,  for  instance,  their  newspaper  organs)  that, 
whatever  else  the  war  does,  it  will  "  once  for  all  put 
an  end  to  the  poisonous  doctrines  of  internationalism, 
pacifism,  free  trade,  socialism  and  democracy"  (as 
a  certain  London  daily  recently  expressed  it). 

Do  these  anti-democrats  see  in  the  war,  not  so 
much  a  means  of  national  defence  as  a  means  by 
which  they  may  hope  to  realize  the  triumph  of  their 
political  doctrines?  Their  intuition  has  at  least  this 
temporary  justification:  their  influence  in  every  coun- 
try has  become  immeasurably  greater  since  the  be- 
ginning of  the  war,  as  the  presence  of  Milners,  Cur- 
zons,  Balfours,  Ribots  and  Poincares  in  "  Liberal  " 
governments  testifies. 

Those  who,  like  the  present  writer,  have  felt,  and 
feel,  a  profound  revulsion  for  the  particular  philoso- 
phy of  life  which,  for  want  of  a  better  word,  we  may 

[200] 


call  Prusslanism,  will  certainly  have  been  struck  by 
the  fact  that  it  is  the  bitterest  anti-Germans,  those 
who  do  not  hesitate  to  proclaim  their  hate  of  the 
German  nation  and  their  desire  for  vengeance,  who 
are  themselves  most  ready  to  adopt  the  Prussian 
philosophy  and  methods  and  to  see  them  imposed 
upon  Britain.  You  can  put  this  to  a  ready  test. 
Make  a  mental  inventory  either  of  private  friends 
or  of  public  men,  who,  even  before  the  war,  were  in 
favour  of  Conscription,  were  contemptuous  of  peace 
ideals,  of  internationalism,  of  "  pacifist  prattle  " ; 
who  rejected  the  idea  that  the  nation  could  ever 
make  itself  secure  by  anything  but  its  own  preponder- 
ant strength,  who  endorsed  the  idea  that  the  claims 
of  a  man's  country  —  his  state  —  should  come  be- 
fore all  other  social  or  moral  claims  whatsoever,  who 
upheld  the  general  principle  of  "  my  country  right 
or  wrong,"  and  rejected  the  idea  of  any  obligation 
to  foreigners  or  a  world  order,  who  believed  in  the 
divine  mission  of  their  state  to  dominate  the  world 
for  the  world's  benefit,  but  who  also  believed  that  by 
Protection  and  similar  devices  foreigners  should  be 
excluded  from  equal  share  in  the  benefits  of  its  pre- 
ponderance; who  believed  that  struggle  between  na- 
tions was  the  law  of  life  and  as  inevitable  as  death, 
and  who,  for  all  these  reasons,  put  first  the  military 
strength  of  the  nation,  and  favoured  its  organization 
on  a  militarist  basis  with  all  that  involved  in  the 
way  of  the  extension  of  State  control  and  the  limita- 
tion of  civil  freedom  and  individual  initiative. 
There  were,  and  are,  large  numbers  of  influential 
Englishmen  and  Americans  with  political  ideas  of 

[201] 


just  that  order.  And  when  you  have  completed  your 
list  you  will  find  that  it  corresponds  pretty  exactly 
with  the  membership  of  the  Anti-German  Union  or 
at  least  includes  all  those  obsessed  by  the  most  fero- 
cious of  "  anti-Hun  "  sentiment.  Yet  the  general 
philosophy  would  give  us  a  State  so  like  the  Prus- 
sian State  that,  as  an  English  satirist  has  suggested, 
the  simplest  way  of  realizing  their  ideas  would  be  to 
hand  over  the  job  to  the  Prussians.^ 

There  is  no  reason  to  doubt  the  entire  genuineness 
of  the  hatred  of  these  Anglo-Prussians  for  their  cor- 
responding type  in  Germany.  History  furnishes 
abundant  proof  that  no  real  difference  of  ideal  or 
outlook  or  race  is  necessary  for  the  formation  of 
rival  groups  that,  circumstances  favouring,  will 
throw  themselves  at  one  another  with  suicidal  fury. 
The  struggles  of  Italian  cities,  the  devastating  wars 
of  the  Spanish-American  Republics  (communities  of 
the  same  languages,  origins,  racial  mixtures),  are 
just  a  few  illustrations  that  spring  to  one's  mind. 

The  things  which  we  have  commonly  In  our  mind 
as  constituting  the  main  objection  to  Prussianism  are, 

*  The  Daily  Mail  having  declared  that  "  we  want  a  Government 
which  will  stick  at  nothing  which  will  win  the  war,"  Mr.  J.  C. 
Squire  retorts :  — 

"At  nothing,  Harrasworth,  nothing? 

....  But  pause,  proud  Lord,  and  think 

did  we  resort 

To  any  measure  of  whatever  sort, 

To  bullying,  lying,  wanton  butchery, 

To  every  kind  of  paying  atrocity; 

Might  not  seditious  men  who  have  no  sense 

Urge  that  the  two  contending  Governments 

Should  cease  to  chant  unmeaning  »Hymns  of  Hate 

Lay  down  their  arms  and  just  amalgamate?" 
[202] 


in  large  part,  things  which  we  shall  in  any  case  be 
led  by  force  of  circumstances  to  adopt.  We  have 
been  apt,  for  instance,  to  rail  at  the  order,  the  regi- 
mentation and  regulation  of  the  individual's  comings 
and  goings  implied  in  the  German  system.  But  we 
are  being  brought  to  something  similar  in  any  case 
not  so  much  by  our  Government,  as  by  the  material 
conditions  of  our  civilization.  In  the  old  days  of 
the  sailing  ships  and  the  stage  coach,  men  lived  a  life 
in  which  "  the  time  o'  day  didn't  matter."  A  week 
or  two's  delay  on  a  foreign  journey,  a  day  or  two's 
delay  in  a  home  one,  an  hour  or  two's  incorrectness 
in  the  cloclcs,  made  little  difference.  There  were  no 
microbes  in  those  days.  In  a  country  of  small  towns 
and  sparse  population  in  no  hurry,  exactitude,  order, 
promptitude  and  scientific  cleanliness  could  really  be 
disregarded.  In  our  days  we  must  regard  them. 
We  must  come  and  go  to  the  minute,  we  must  keep 
to  the  right  on  the  pavement,  we  must  get  on  the 
motor  'bus  at  the  regulation  spot,  we  must  mind  the 
microbes,  we  must  catch  the  8.18  in  the  morning, 
not  because  the  Government  commands  it,  but  be- 
cause a  vast  and  closely-packed  population  living  by 
machinery  must  observe  order,  system  and  hygiene, 
or  no  one  could  go  about  his  business  or  earn  his 
living,  or  be  sure  of  not  being  killed,  or  be  secure 
against  devastating  epidemics. 

Indeed,  the  question  here  suggested  has  been 
pushed  by  those  whom  no  one  accuses  of  being  "  pro- 
German,"  very  much  farther  than  I  have  pushed  it. 
"  An  immense  note  of  interrogation  hangs  over  the 
theory  that  the  principle  of  free  co-operation  can 

[203] 


secure  for  democracy  the  highest  degree  of  effi- 
ciency," says  Mr.  Wells.  Criticizing  some  of  the 
conclusions  of  Professor  van  Gennep  as  to  the  ef- 
fectiveness of  that  form  of  national  organization 
which  has  marked  the  western  democracies  of 
Europe,  Mr.  Wells  says:  "  If  the  present  Govern- 
ments of  Great  Britain  and  the  United  States  are  the 
best  sort  of  Governments  that  democracy  can  pro- 
duce, then  Professor  Ostwald  is  much  more  right 
than  Professor  van  Gennep  is  prepared  to  confess." 

He  goes  on: 

*'  There  can  be  little  doubt  which  side  has  achieved 
the  higher  collective  efficiency.  It  is  not  the  western 
side.  ...  It  is  no  use  denying  that  the  Central 
Powers  were  not  only  better  prepared  for  this  war 
at  the  outset,  but  that  on  the  whole  they  have  met 
the  occasion  of  the  war  as  they  have  so  far  arisen 
with  much  more  collective  intelligence,  will-power, 
and  energy  than  any  of  the  Allies,  not  even  excepting 
France.  They  have  succeeded,  not  merely  in  meet- 
ing enormous  military  requirements  better,  but  in 
keeping  the  material  side  of  their  national  life 
steadier  under  greater  stress."  ^ 

And  Mr.  Wells  concludes  that  if  really  the  pres- 
ent Governments  of  Great  Britain  and  the  United 
States  are  the  best  sort  of  Governments  that  democ- 
racy can  produce,  then  democracy  is  bound  "  if  not 
this  time,  then  next  time  or  the  time  after,  to  be 
completely  overcome  or  to  be  superseded  by  some 
form  of  authoritative  State  organization." 

About  the  middle  of  191 6  the  present  wiiter  pub- 

^  London  Nation,  July  24,  191 5. 

[204] 


lished  in  England  a  review  of  certain  tendencies.  It 
may  be  worth  while  for  the  American  reader  to  judge 
how  far  some  of  its  passages  could  apply  to  Ameri- 
can conditions;  such  passages  for  Instance,  as  these: 

All  criticism  of  this  growing  tendency  to  re- 
pudiate the  ideas  of  toleration  and  freedom  upon 
which  we  used  to  pride  ourselves,  is  met  by  the 
declaration  that  these  new  repressions  and  intoler- 
ances are  necessary  for  the  purposes  of  the  war; 
that  we  acquiesce  unwillingly  In  them  as  a  necessary 
war  measure.  Is  it  true  that  we  resort  to  such 
measures  unwillingly?  Is  there  not  much  evidence 
which  would  go  to  show  that  we  are  coming  to  take 
pleasure  in  repression  and  the  Infliction  of  hardship 
upon  those  we  don't  like  —  unpopular,  minorities, 
enemy  aliens  within  our  power  —  for  Its  own  sake? 

Note  some  of  the  problems  upon  which  the  na- 
tion, the  newspapers,  the  House  of  Commons,  the 
government  are  spending  their  time.  There  was  a 
formal  question  in  the  House  the  other  day  as  to 
whether  German  officer-prisoners  had  been  allowed 
to  ride  in  first  class  railway  carriages,  and  quite  a 
debate  on  it;  another  as  to  whether  it  was  true  that 
orders  had  been  given  to  minimize  noise  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  an  internment  camp  for  the  sake  of  sick 
prisoners  In  the  Infirmary;  another  as  to  whether 
enemies  killed  in  air  raids  had  been  accorded  mifi- 
tary  honours  at  their  funeral.  These  criticisms  of 
the  government  by  the  super-patriots  do  not  help  to 
win  the  war.  It  is  a  military  asset,  for  very  obvious 
reasons,  to  treat  your  prisoners  well.  No  earthly 
useful  purpose   Is  served  by  spending  the  time  of 

[205] 


members,  government  officials,  officers  and  soldiers 
on  matters  of  this  kind.  Yet  members  know  that  it 
is  immensely  popular  to  raise  just  that  kind  of  ques- 
tion, and  that  they  gain  credit  with  their  constituents 
by  doing  it.  The  Evening  News  for  days  carried  on 
a  hectic  campaign  against  some  English  people  who 
had  taken  the  children  of  interned  Germans  into  their 
homes  and  with  clothing  and  comforts  had  helped 
destitute  enemy  aliens.  One  would  have  supposed 
that  here  was  an  action  of  which  the  nation  might 
well  be  proud,  as  showing  how  different  is  our  con- 
duct to  that  of  the  Germans.  But  against  these  Eng- 
lish men  and  women,  popular  papers  of  immense  cir- 
culation organize  a  tearing  and  raging  campaign  of 
vituperation  and  abuse.  Flaming  headlines 
throw  at  those  whose  crime  It  is  to  have  helped  main- 
tain our  reputation  for  chivalry,  mercy,  and  kindli- 
ness such  vituperative  epithets  as  "  Hun-Coddlers  " 
and  "  Pro-Germans."  There  are  strident  appeals 
to  the  government  to  "  stop  this  scandal  "  of  showing 
a  little  kindness  to  forlorn  and  helpless  children 
whose  crime  of  being  German  Is  not  theirs.  Does 
Lord  Northcliffe  really  think  that  that  sort  of  cam- 
paign will  help  to  win  the  war?  But  we  must  admit 
that  it  Is  enormously  popular  and  certainly  helps  to 
sell  his  papers. 

"  What  has  all  this  sentlmentalism  to  do  with  the 
problem  of  freedom  In  our  own  society?  " 

It  has  everything  to  do.  For  freedom  —  and  not 
alone  freedom  but  in  the  long  run  order,  and  good 
social  organization  as  well  —  suffers  most  from  the 
feelings  of  hostility  latent  In  all  of  us  towards  men 

[206] 


of  opposing  opinions,  political  or  religious.  Indulge 
and  sanction  these  passions  which  lie  at  the  root  of 
intolerance,  and  we  shall  have  a  community  in  which 
difference  of  opinion  is  no  longer  possible,  in  which 
dominant  groups  will  use  their  power  to  coerce  their 
political  opponents:  and  that  is  the  end  of  freedom 
and  democracy.  Without  toleration,  so  unnatural 
to  man,  so  slowly  and  painfully  developed,  there  can 
be  no  democracy. 

This  curious  transformation  of  feeling  —  which  Is 
bringing  us  to  hate  the  very  qualities  we  used  to  be 
proud  of  —  is  shown  particularly  in  the  virtual  aban- 
donment of  a  tradition  upon  which,  but  a  year  or 
two  since,  we  were  apt  to  look  as  the  foundation 
stone  of  all  we  most  valued  In  our  political  life;  that 
upon  which  the  great  movements  of  a  thousand  years 
of  English  history  have  been  built:  Freedom  —  of 
the  person,  of  the  mind,  of  conscience,  of  speech. 
If  we  surrendered  these  things  with  evident  regret 
as  a  dire  necessity  of  war,  one  could  look  on  the 
matter  with  some  hopefulness.  But  no  one  can  hon- 
estly pretend  that  we  enforce  these  measures  against 
Socialist  newspapers  or  conscientious  objectors  with 
regret.  To  appeal  now  to  an  Ideal  which  has  ani- 
mated generation  after  generation  of  Englishmen  in 
the  past,  which  dethroned  kings,  upset  dynasties, 
brought  the  country  to  civil  war,  which  drove  the 
most  stalwart  among  our  stock  to  the  renunciation 
of  the  fatherland  and  exile  in  a  new  world,  provokes 
now  only  impatience  and  derision,  particularly,  per- 
haps, among  the  official  guardians  of  conscience. 
The  pillars  of  organized  religion  have  taken  an  at- 

[207] 


tltude  which  Is  one  of  open  hostility  to  those  guilty 
of  so  inconvenient  a  thing  as  invoking  the  categoric 
imperative.  There  are  more  Englishmen  in  gaol  or 
suffering  crippling  civil  disability  today  "  for  con- 
science' sake  "  than,  perhaps,  in  any  period  of  the 
Test  Acts,  and  ninety-nine  out  of  a  hundred  of  us 
are  not  even  aware  of  the  fact,  and  would  probably 
deny  it.^ 

The  importance  of  all  this  lies  not,  of  course,  In 
the  individual  hardship  inflicted.  In  a  world  where 
suffering  and  sacrifice,  to  say  nothing  of  life  or  jus- 
tice, are  held  as  cheaply  as  they  are  today,  it  is,  in  so 
far  as  the  individual  is  concerned,  a  small  thing  that 
a  few  thousand  conscientious  objectors  should  starve 
or  go  to  prison;  that  English  teachers  and  men  of 
letters  of  international  reputation  should  be  reduced 
to  penury.     The  hardship  does  not  matter. 

But  what  does  matter  is  that  the  habit  of  tolerating 
this  sort  of  thing  is  bound,  sooner  or  later,  to  destroy 

1  Here  are  some  convictions  in  this  country  under  the  American 
Espionage  and  other  war  Acts: 

The  Reverend  C.  A.  Waldron,  fifteen  years  for  preaching  that 
Christ  did  not  approve  the  war,  and  for  circulating  a  religious 
pacifist  pamphlet;  Harold  Mackley,  fifteen  years  for  disloyal  re- 
marks in  conversation,  both  at  Burlington,  Vt. ;  Daniel  Wallace,  at 
Davenport,  Iowa,  twenty  years  for  speech  on  conscription  and  the 
war;  Frederick  Kraft  (former  Socialist  candidate  for  Governor), 
five  years  and  $i,ooo  at  Trenton,  N.  J.,  for  criticism  of  conscription 
in  a  street  corner  speech;  Vincente  Balbas,  eight  years  and  $4,000 
fine  for  an  editorial  in  his  paper  opposing  the  drafting  of  Porto 
Ricans  who  had  declined  U.  S.  citizenship ;  at  Minneapolis,  J.  A. 
Petersen,  Republican  nominee  for  U.  S.  Senate,  four  years  for 
speeches  and  articles  during  their  campaign;  at  Sioux  Falls  twenty- 
six  Socialists  sentenced  from  one  to  two  years  for  circulating  a 
petition  charging  unfair  administration  of  the  draft;  at  Sioux  Falls, 
Wm.  J.  Head,  State  Socialist  Secretary,  sentenced  to  three  years  for 
circulating  a  petition  for  the  repeal  of  the  draft  law;  at  Des  Moines, 
D.  T.  Blodgett,  twenty  years  for  circulating  leaflet  advocating  not 
re-electing  Congressmen  who  voted  for  conscription.  These  are 
fair  samples  of  a  great  many  similar  cases. 

[208] 


that  political  morality,  that  sense  of  playing  the 
game,  which  has  made  British  democracy  a  possibil- 
ity, and  has  in  some  measure  set  the  standard  of  self 
government  throughout  the  world;  that  the  quality 
of  life  which  we  associate  with  free  society,  and 
which  renders  possible  a  certain  quality  of  men,  self- 
reliant,  and  capable  of  individual  judgment,  will  have 
been  fundamentally  altered. 

Since  that  was  written  there  has  been  a  curious 
development  of  the  situation  in  England,  a  develop- 
ment the  history  of  which  it  is  certainly  worth  while 
for  Americans  to  note. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  war  the  government 
adopted  the  principle  of  restraining  and  controlling 
newspaper  comment.  The  result  of  that  policy  has 
been  to  place  the  government  absolutely  within  the 
control,  not  of  the  entire  press  of  the  nation,  but  of 
a  section  of  it,  the  section  which  ninety  educated 
Englishmen  out  of  a  hundred  before  the  war  would 
have  declared  to  be  the  part  which  should  on  no 
account  dictate  public  policy  —  the  sensational  and 
less  responsible  part. 

It  is  no  mystery  how  that  has  been  brought  about. 

Public  opinion  in  the  early  stages  of  war,  in  every 
nation,  is  always  in  favour  of  a  "  truce  to  discussion." 
We  remind  one  another  then  that  the  time  for  words 
has  passed  and  the  time  for  action  come.  "  Talk  " 
is  disparaged.  We  demand  the  union  sacree.  And 
almost  always  Is  that  rule  first  broken  by  those  who 
at  the  beginning  were  most  Insistent  upon  its  enforce- 
ment.    In  the  case  of  England,  a  party  truce  was 

[209] 


declared  at  the  outbreak  of  war  and  the  feeling 
against  public  criticism  of  the  government  or  its  pol- 
icy was  intense.  Such  public  men  as  attempted  any- 
thing resembling  it  were  indeed  driven  from  public 
life  for  a  time,  mainly  by  the  influence  of  the  group 
of  papers  controlled  by  Lord  Northcliffe.^  For 
these  papers,  and  others  like  them  it  will  be  noted, 
maintained  their  right  to  criticise  policy  and  govern- 
ment (as  Mr.  Roosevelt  does  in  this  country).  It 
was  the  Liberal  papers  that  were  silenced.  For  two 
years  the  public  heard  the  discussion  of  policy  from 
one  side  only :  the  Chauvinist  and  Nationalist.  The 
Liberal  and  Internationalist  side  had  to  remain  un- 
expressed. It  was  not  difficult  to  see  what  would 
happen:  Mr.  Asquith's  government  was  driven 
out  and  replaced  by  another  largely  as  the  result  of 
the  criticisms  of  Lord  Northcliffe's  papers.^ 

Now  whether  we  take  the  view  that  that  result 
was  good  or  bad  we  justify  public  discussion.  If  the 
result  was  good,  if  the  war  was  being  mismanaged, 
the  country  was  saved  by  virtue  of  public  discussion 
—  by  virtue  of  abandoning  the  rule  of  silence.  If 
we  take  the  view  that  the  result  was  bad  we  have  a 

''■ "  It  was  the  predominance  of  the  Northcliflfe  and  Clemenceau 
schools  that  made  the  Anglo-French  diplomacy  toward  Russia 
so  disastrous.  It  prevented  Stockholm,  overthrew  Kerensky  and 
alienated  the  Bolsheviki.  It  has  been  under  the  influence  of  the 
same  type  of  thinkers  that  the  Entente  war  aims  have  been  stated 
in  so  geographical  a  manner  that  even  the  President  has  become 
involved  in  complex  boundary  claims.  .  .  . 

"  Unintelligence  in  war  aims  goes  hand  in  hand  with  an  ostrich 
policy  about  the  facts.  Journalists  who  tell  the  truth  about  condi- 
tions in  any  field  of  action  are  looked  upon  as  weakening  morale 
instead  of  strengthening  it.  This  is  one  of  the  most  damaging  con- 
ventions now  at  work.  Clearness  of  sight  would  help  us  to  end 
far  more  than  feed  an  ignorant  optimism." — Mr.  Norman  Hapgood 
in  the  Nev^  Republic,  Jan.  26,  1917. 

[210] 


case  where  a  government  found  It  impossible  to  re- 
sist the  intervention  of  public  judgment,  although  it 
must  have  known  that  judgment  to  be  wrong.  And 
if  it  was  wrong,  it  must  have  been  because  the  public 
judged  on  an  insufficient  knowledge  of  the  facts  and 
made  wrong  conclusion  concerning  them;  because  in 
other  words,  public  discussion  was  not  full,  had  not 
all  the  facts,  did  not  hear  all  sides.  Either  verdict 
pushes  one  to  the  conclusion  that  the  public  will  judge 
either  with  or  without  the  facts  and  opportunity  for 
free  discussion;  and  that  the  part  of  wisdom  is  to 
see  that  that  discussion  is  as  full  and  well-founded  in 
fact  as  possible. 

The  present  writer  happens  to  have  pointed  out 
elsewhere  something  of  the  process  of  this  thing: 

What  the  "  truce  to  discussion  "  really  means 
in  practice  Is  not  that  discussion  ceases  (a  good 
deal  might  be  said  for  that)  but  that  all  Liberal 
contribution  to  the  discussion  ceases.  To  re- 
alize that  fact  one  must  weigh  certain  elements 
of  war  psychology,  and  the  psychology  of  dis- 
cussion. I  will  try  not  to  be  very  abstruse. 
If  you  have  ever  taken  part  In  a  discussion  of 
Protection  and  Free  Trade  during  an  election 
you  know  that  when  feeling  has  begun  to  run 
a  little  high  the  Protectionist  becomes  abso- 
lutely convinced  that  the  obvious  blindness  of 
the  Free  Trader  to  the  protectionist  truth  can 
only  be  accounted  for  by  the  fact  that,  by  some 
moral  perversion,  the  Free  Trader  Is  more  con- 
cerned with  the  welfare  of  foreigners  than  with 
that  of  Americans.     I  need  not  remind  you 

[211] 


that  for  years  every  Free  Trader  In  America 
was  an  Anglomaniac,  if  indeed  he  had  not  been 
suborned  by  the  gold  of  the  Cobden  Club. 
Now,  if  in  times  of  profound  peace  an  honest 
attempt  to  find  the  best  policy  for  one's  own 
country  can  in  this  way  be  interpreted  as  hos- 
tility to  one's  country,  merely  because  the  pro- 
posed policy  is  also  good  for  the  foreigner, 
how  much  more  must  we  expect  that  kind  of 
misapprehension  in  the  immeasurably  fiercer 
passions  of  war  time.  It  is  natural,  human, 
excusable,  a  phase  of  the  instinct  of  pugnacity 
and  self-preservation,  an  essential  element  of 
war  psychology,  perhaps  indispensable  to  na- 
tional morale. 

But  note  how  it  operates  in  the  case  of  the 
press.  We  agree  not  to  discuss  peace  terms. 
A  paper  of  large  circulation  has  an  article 
demonstrating  that  there  will  never  be  any 
peace  in  the  world  until  the  enemy  nation  is 
utterly  destroyed;  that  the  people  are  as  much 
to  blame  as  the  government.  It  strikes  nobody 
that  this  is  a  discussion  of  policy  or  peace  terms. 
A  rival  paper  has  an  article  arguing  that  no 
territory  must  be  taken  from  the  enemy  and 
that  we  have  no  quarrel  with  the  enemy  people. 
In  this  case  we  realize,  not  only  that  it  is  a  dis- 
cussion of  terms,  but  a  very  irritating  one,  with 
a  pro-German  colouring  to  boot.  And  we 
have  a  general  impression  that  that  sort  of 
thing  ought  to  be  suppressed.  Now,  when  to 
the  handicap  on  the  liberal  paper  is  added  the 
[212] 


prospect  of  legal  penalties  its  position  becomes 
hopeless.  Incidentally,  when  we  suppress  an 
obscure  socialist  paper,  the  importance  of  the 
act  is  not  in  that  suppression,  but  in  the  effect 
that  it  has  upon  the  policy  of  much  more  power- 
ful papers  who  realize  that  they  will  have  to 
look  out  and  do  not  feel  disposed  to  take  any 
risks  at  all  in  such  a  public  temper  —  which 
doubtless  extends  to  government  officials  and 
to  juries.  The  liberal  press  becomes  silent  and 
control  of  opinion  passes  to  those  papers  that 
appeal  to  the  impulsive  and  instinctive,  rather 
than  to  the  reflective,  element.  This  state  of 
mind  which  I  have  described  is  progressively 
strengthened.  And  a  good  job  too,  you  may 
say.  You  might  quote  the  movie  advertisement 
to  the  effect  that  you  cannot  put  up  a  good 
fight  until  your  blood  boils;  so  the  more  it 
boils  the  better. 

What,  then,  is  the  job  of  us  civilians  who  are 
left  behind  and  do  not  have  to  go  over  the  top 
and  do  the  bayoneting?  It  is,  I  think  we  have 
agreed,  the  direction  of  policy.  If  the  govern- 
ment is  going  wrong  we  correct  it,  or  replace 
it,  and  whether  we  intervene  wisely  or  not  de- 
pends upon  this  state  of  mind  of  ours.  And 
I  am  not  sure  .that  boiling  blood  is  the  best 
psychological  condition  for  that  judgment;  for 
the  public  passes  upon  policies,  and  makes  a 
choice  between  them,  not  by  a  cold  intellectual 
analysis  of  their  respective  merits,  but  by  virtue 
of  a  general  state  of  mind  and  temper. 
[213] 


If  we  really  are  directing  the  fight  in  its 
larger  aspects  —  and  I  think  we  are  agreed  on 
that  point  —  a  certain  balance  and  sanity  of 
judgment  rather  than  violent  temper  may  be 
desirable.     I  believe  it  is  a  ruse  of  a  prize 
fighter  who  is  getting  the  worst  of  it  to  try  and 
make  his  opponent  really  angry.     Then  the  op- 
ponent's bad  temper  may  compensate  for  his 
superior    strength    or    ability.     The    toreador 
manages  to  reduce  an  opponent  twenty  times 
his  own  strength  by  making  that  opponent  "  see 
red."  1 
But  note  what  has  happened  today.     We  find  the 
Northcliffe  press  itself  complaining  of  the  sensation- 
alism and  lack  of  balance  on  the  part  of  the  public  1 
It  does  so  over  the  circumstances  of  the  Pemberton 
Billing   case.     The   popular   attitude   towards   that 
case  would  seem  to  show  that  millions  of  the  English 
people  really  do  believe  that  the  German  govern- 
ment owns  a  mysterious  "  black  book  "  containing 
the  names  of  forty-seven  thousand  prominent  Eng- 
lishmen —  including  cabinet  ministers  —  addicted  to 
unnatural  vice  and  that  it  holds  the  knowledge  of 
this  fact  over  them  as  a  means  of  securing  a  pro- 
German  policy  on  the  part  of  England.     The  public 
character  who  makes  this  amazing  discovery  has  be- 
come a  national  hero,   and  the  type  of  newspaper 
which  exploits  that  type  of  rumour  come  to  have  im- 
mense power  in  the  nation.     Power   seems   to  be 
passing  in  some  degree  from  the  Northcliffe  press  to 

1  Annals  of  the  American  Academy  of  Political  and  Social  Science, 
July,  1918.  Report  of  an  address  delivered  at  a  meeting  of  the 
Academy. 

[214] 


the  press  that  out-NorthclIffes  Northcllffe.  No  won- 
der we  find  the  London  Nation  talking  of  the  "  col- 
lapse of  the  mind  "  of  the  people. 

Now  quite  obviously  a  nation  in  that  condition,  in 
which  the  government  and  its  policy  tend  to  be  con- 
trolled by  its  least  sober  press  and  least  worthy  ele- 
ments, is  not  likely  to  do  the  best  in  difficult  and  try- 
ing moments  of  policy;  not  likely,  perhaps  to  select 
wisely  its  government,  to  choose  with  discernment 
between  rival  candidates  for  power.  Its  political 
judgment  will  be  defective,  "  unbalanced."  To  put 
it  at  its  very  least  it  has  a  warning  for  America. 

But  note  the  difficulty:  To  utter  that  warning  at 
all  in  any  way  likely  to  be  listened  to,  may  expose  a 
journalist  or  an  author  to  the  very  severest  punish- 
ment: a  large  fine  and  a  long  period  of  imprison- 
ment.    The  espionage  act  reads : 

Whoever,  when  the  United  States  is  at  war,  shall  wilfully 
utter,  print,  write,  or  publish  any  disloyal,  profane,  scur- 
rilous, or  abusive  language  about  the  form  of  government  of 
the  United  States,  or  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States 
or  the  military  or  naval  forces,  of  the  United  States,  or  the 
flag  of  the  United  States,  or  the  uniform  of  the  Army  or 
Navy  of  the  United  States  .  .  .  whoever  shall  by  word  or 
act  support  or  favour  the  cause  of  any  country  with  which 
the  United  States  is  at  war,  or  by  word  or  act  oppose  the 
cause  of  the  United  States  therein,  shall  be  punished  by  a  fine 
of  not  more  than  $io,ooo  or  imprisonment  for  not  more  than 
twenty  years,  or  both. 

Note  this  suggestive  progression.  Rose  Pastor 
Stokes,  in  favour  of  the  war  is  condemned  to  ten 
years'  imprisonment  for  sending  the  following  letter 

[215] 


to  the  Kansas  City  Star   (which,  incidentally,  was 
not  punished  for  publishing  it)  : 

"  I  see  that  it  is,  after  all,  necessary  to  send  a  statement 
for  publication  over  my  own  signature,  and  I  trust  that  you 
will  give  it  space  in  your  columns. 

"  A  headline  in  this  evening's  issue  of  the  Star  reads: 

"  *  M  rs.  Stokes  for  Government  and  Against  War  at  the 
Same  Time.' 

"  I  am  not  for  the  Government.  In  the  interview  that 
follows  I  am  quoted  as  having  said : 

"  *  I  believe  that  the  Government  of  the  United  States 
should  have  the  unqualified  support  of  every  citizen  in  its 
war  aims.' 

"  I  made  no  such  statement  and  I  believe  no  such  thing. 
No  government  which  is  FOR  the  profiteers  can  also  be  FOR 
the  people,  and  I  am  for  the  people  while  the  government  is 
for  the  profiteers. 

"  I  expect  my  working-class  point  of  view  to  receive  no 
sympathy  from  your  paper,  but  I  do  expect  that  the  tradi- 
tional courtesy  of  publication  by  the  newspapers  of  a  signed 
statement  of  correction,  which  even  our  most  Bourbon  papers 
grant,  will  be  extended  to  this  statement  by  yours."  ^ 

Yet  a  year  or  two  since  President  Woodrow  Wilson 
wrote  the  following: 

"  The  masters  of  the  government  of  the  United  States  are 
the  combined  capitalists  and  manufacturers  of  the  United 
States."  2 

"  We  have  restricted  credit,  we  have  restricted  opportunity, 
we  have  controlled  development,  and  we  have  come  to  be  one 

^  Judge  Van  Valkenburgh  (Western  District  of  Missouri,  May, 
1918)  stated  at  the  outset  of  his  charge:  "The  act  of  the  defendant 
complained  of  is  the  causing  to  be  published  in  the  Kansas  City 
Star,  a  daily  newspaper  of  wide  and  general  circulation,  the  fol- 
lowing letter." 

2 "  The  New  Freedono,"  p.  57. 

[216] 


of  the  worst  ruled,  one  of  the  most  completely  controlled  and 
dominated,  governments  in  the  civilized  world  —  no  longer 
a  government  by  free  opinion,  no  longer  a  government  by 
conviction  and  the  vote  of  the  majority,  but  a  government  by 
the  opinion  and  the  duress  of  small  groups  of  dominant 
men."  ^ 

"  We  must  learn,  we  freemen,  to  meet,  as  our  fathers  did, 
somehow,  somewhere,  for  consultation.  There  must  be  dis- 
cussion and  debate,  in  which  all  freely  participate."  ^ 

"  I  am  not  afraid  of  the  American  people  getting  up  and 
doing  something.     I  am  only  afraid  they  will  not." 

"  I  believe  that  the  weakness  of  the  American  character  is 
that  there  are  so  few  growlers  and  kickers  among  us.  .  .  . 
Difference  of  opinion  is  a  sort  of  manadate  of  conscience. 
.  .  .  We  have  forgotten  the  verj-^  principle  of  our  origin  if 
we  have  forgotten  how  to  object,  how  to  resist,  how  to  agi- 
tate, how  to  pull  down  and  build  up,  even  to  the  extent  of 
revolutionary  practices,  if  it  be  necessary  to  re-adjust  mat- 
ters." 3 

Assuredly  America  has  travelled  quickly  and  trav- 
elled far. 

But,  it  will  be  vociferated,  there  is  all  the  difference 
between  peace  and  war.  Things  good  in  peace  time 
become  quite  inadmissible  in  war. 

Is  it  at  all  certain,  however,  that  we  shall  be  able 
in  the  future,  in  many  of  the  matters  we  are  dis- 
cussing, to  make  a  clear  distinction  between  peace 
time  and  war  time? 

Take  the  matter  of  conscription.  It  is  pretty 
definitely  laid  down  now  both  in  Britain  and  in 
America,  that  the  teaching  of  the  early  Christian 
doctrine  as  to  the  sin  of  killing  one's  fellows,  is  in 

^  "  The  New  Freedom,"  p.  201. 
2  "  The  New  Freedom,"  p.  408. 

' "  Spurious  vs.  Real  Patriotism."  School  Review,  Vol.  7,  p.  634. 
[217] 


effect  an  incitement  to  the  resistance  of  the  draft, 
and  must  be  regarded  as  sedition.  But  conscription 
will  probably  be  the  law  as  much  of  peace  time  as 
of  war  time.  There  is  a  very  general  demand  in 
both  countries  that  compulsory  military  service  be 
made  permanent.  If  we  now  send  a  clergyman  to 
ten  or  twenty  years'  imprisonment  for  saying  that 
Christ  would  not  have  killed  his  fellows  at  the  orders 
of  his  government,  and  interpret  such  doctrines  as 
subversive  of  the  law,  how  will  they  be  less  subversive 
when  that  law  has  become  part  of  the  permanent 
legislation  of  the  country?  Shall  we  not  be  obliged, 
if  we  retain  conscription,  to  make  that  particular 
interpretation  of  Christian  doctrine  illegal? 

The  very  righteousness  of  this  present  war  blinds 
us  to  certain  dangers  of  the  instruments  —  it  may 
be  the  very  necessary  instruments  —  which  we  are 
employing  in  the  waging  of  it.  But  how  very  power- 
fully certain  of  those  instruments  might  affect,  not 
only  the  waging  of  war  in  war  time  but  the  shaping 
of  policy  in  peace  time,  we  can  realize  if  we  could 
imagine  conscription  having  been  a  permanent  in- 
stitution in  Britain  twenty  or  thirty  years  ago. 

Will  the  reader  please  note  that  I  am  not  oppos- 
ing conscription,  I  am  only  insisting  upon  certain  dan- 
gers of  its  use.  It  may  be  necessary  in  sickness  to 
employ  dangerous  drugs,  but  safety  lies  in  being  fa- 
miliar with  their  risks.  The  more  it  is  urged  that 
conscription  is  indispensable  and  inevitable  the  more 
necessary  does  it  become  to  realize  the  dangers  of  its 
normal  employment.  As  an  illustration  of  those 
dangers  I  suggest  that  if  during  the  last  few  genera- 

[218] 


tions  England  had  had  conscription,  possessed  of  the 
powers  with  which  it  is  already  endowed  the  opera- 
tions of  that  system  would  have  resulted  inevitably 
in  checking  the  liberal  tendencies  of  English  political 
development  and  strengthening  the  reactionary  and 
imperialist,  by  limiting  freedom  both  of  discussion 
and  institution,  and  by  curtailing  popular  right;  and 
would  have  made  English  political  influence  in  the 
world  very  much  less  beneficent  than  happily  it  is. 

That  can  be  illustrated  by  an  incident  of  recent 
British  history. 

The  Boer  War  and  its  sequel  indicate  the  exist- 
ence of  two  opposing  forces  in  English  political  de- 
velopment —  in  the  development  of  Western  democ- 
racy, indeed;  the  forces  which  brought  on  the  war, 
and  the  opposing  forces  which  dominated  the  post- 
bellum  settlement.  Because,  of  course,  the  final  set- 
tlement which  has  given  us  a  loyal  and  united  South 
Africa  was  carried  out  by  a  pro-Boer  government,  a 
party  who  had  bitterly  fought  the  policy  that  precipi- 
tated the  war,  and  who  in  a  large  degree  reversed 
its  object.  But  so  complete  a  victory  of  Liberal 
forces  would  have  been  impossible  if  the  powers  now 
possessed  by  the  Government  —  and  conscription 
would  have  given  the  Government  these  powers  — 
had  been  in  existence.  That  system  would  have 
strengthened  incalculably  those  reactionary  forces 
which  played  so  large  a  part  in  the  war  itself.  Let 
us  see  why. 

Although  the  Boer  War  is  a  very  controversial 
subject  in  English  history,  there  are  very  few  Eng- 
lishmen who  would  seriously  challenge  the  view  that 

[219] 


there  entered  into  its  motives  —  whether  the  war  as 
a  whole  was  just  or  not  —  very  ugly  elements  of  cap- 
italist exploitation,  a  Prussianization  of  Enghsh 
temper  shown  in  a  crude  desire  of  domination,  ex- 
cuse or  justification  of  things  like  the  Jameson  Raid, 
a  refusal  to  see  an  "  enemy  "  point  of  view,  a  sys- 
tematic vilification  of  the  Boer  character  and  finally, 
in  the  conduct  of  the  war  itself,  methods  which  the 
Englishman  who  after  the  war  became  British  Prime 
Minister,  declared  curtly  to  be  "  methods  of  bar- 
barism " —  farm  burning,  concentration  camps,  etc. 

Now,  not  merely  had  this  lapse  into  Prussianism 
ranged  the  opinion  of  most  of  the  civilized  world 
against  England  —  certainly  as  much  as  it  was 
against  France  in  the  Dreyfus  case  —  but  what  is 
much  more  to  the  point,  most  English  Liberals 
fought  the  whole  policy  and  tendency  of  the  war. 
The  pro-Boer  agitation  (in  which  Mr.  Lloyd  George 
was  perhaps  the  most  violent  figure)  did  not,  it  is 
true,  stop  the  war,  though  it  shortened  it;  but  It 
produced  a  reaction  against  the  Prussian  temper  so 
great  that  the  pro-Boers,  electorally  triumphant 
after  the  war,  virtually  restored  to  the  Boer  Repub- 
lics their  independence  under  the  guise  of  responsible 
Colonial  Government;  and  to  the  bitter  anger  of 
British  junkerdom  at  the  time,  allowed  the  Boer 
element  to  become  once  more  politically  dominant 
throughout  South  Africa;  so  that  within  a  year  or 
two  of  the  close  of  the  war  the  virtual  ruler  of  South 
Africa  was  the  man  who  had  led  the  Boer  forces  In 
the  field  against  British  arms. 

But  that  conversion  of  the  British  people,  and 
[220] 


their  revolt  against  their  own  Government,  would 
have  been  impossible  under  conscription  and  the 
powers  we  have  now  given  it.  The  war,  which 
lasted  nearly  three  years,  called  from  first  to  last 
for  nearly  half  a  million  men,  drawn  not  only  from 
the  regular  army,  but  from  militia  and  irregular 
forces.  Presumably  those  who  offered  their  services 
for  the  war  did  not  share  the  views  of  the  pro-Boer 
party  of  the  day. 

But  what  would  have  been  the  position  of  English 
soldiers  under  the  existing  powers  of  the  State? 
The  Government  would,  of  course,  take  no  account 
of  political  opinion.  While  the  pro-Boer  might  be 
taken  to  the  front,  the  pro-Chamberlainite  might 
have  been  left  at  home.  Young  Liberals  and  Non- 
conformists were  reading  in  Mr.  Lloyd  George's 
speeches  that  the  war  was  a  monstrous  wickedness, 
tainted  at  its  source,  carried  on  by  methods  of  bar- 
barism. Inflamed  by  all  this  these  young  men  would, 
under  conscription,  have  been  sent  to  the  veldt  to 
kill  Boers,  burn  Boer  farm  houses,  and  drive  Boer 
women  and  children  into  concentration  camps. 

Would  they,  in  such  conditions,  have  done  those 
things?  I  can  answer  personally  for  at  least  some; 
they  would  have  flatly  refused.  We  now  know  — 
the  1906  election  taught  us  that  —  that  pro-Boerism 
had  gone  much  deeper  than  was  generally  supposed. 
The  refusal  would  not  have  been  isolated  and  spor- 
adic, for  though  pro-Boerism  presented  what  was  at 
the  time  a  minority,  it  was  a  passionate  and  convinced 
minority.  And  that  minority  —  the  editors,  writers, 
bishops,  professors  —  would  certainly,  some  of  them, 

[221] 


have  followed  Mr.  Lloyd  George  In  supporting  that 
mutiny  and  encouraging  it. 

What  would  the  conscription  authorities  have 
done  ?  Shot  the  young  conscripts,  and  let  Mr.  Lloyd 
George  —  the  pro-Boer  agitator  —  really  respon- 
sible for  their  mutiny,  continue  unchecked?  Let  the 
conscript  choose  whether  he  should  go  to  war  or  not? 
Then  that  would  have  been  the  end  of  conscrip- 
tion. And  would  the  military  authorities  accept  sur- 
render to  sedition  in  war  times? 

There  was  only  one  thing,  under  conscription,  to 
have  done :  suppress  the  pro-Boer  agitation.  For 
conscription  to  have  worked  at  all  in  the  Boer  War 
would  have  meant  a  very  thoroughgoing  censorship 
of  newspaper  opinion,  suppression  of  public  meet- 
ings, control  of  university  professors  and  religious 
teachers,  and  the  suppression  of  the  speaking  and 
writing  of  the  men  who  have  since  ruled  England  and 
guided  her  policy. 

It  would  have  suited  the  Government  of  the  day, 
of  course;  notably  Mr;  Chamberlain.  He  would 
not  have  needed  to  answer  Lloyd  George  or  the  other 
very  violent  pro-Boers.  He  would  have  sent  them 
to  gaol.  Incidentally,  such  a  step  would  have  been 
very  popular  just  at  the  time. 

But  such  a  course  would  have  altered  not  only  the 
subsequent  history  of  the  South  African  settlement, 
but  of  all  English  politics.  The  discredit  which  fell 
upon  the  authors  of  the  Boer  War  and  finally  swept 
them  from  office  and  so  completely  checked  the  Prus- 
sian temper  and  tendencies,  was  due  largely  to  the 
educating  influence  of  the  pro-Boer  agitation.     The 

[222] 


movement  which  accounted  for  the  landslide  of  the 
1906  election  was  largely  a  moral  movement,  a  real- 
ization of  the  true  character  of  Chamberlainite  and 
Milnerite  politics,  due  largely  to  just  that  agitation 
during  the  war  which  conscription  must  have  sup- 
pressed. 

Let  us  see  what  is  the  relation  of  the  mechanism 
of  those  State  powers  to  political  freedom  of  opinion 
in  present-day  circumstances.  Put  the  thing  in  the 
concrete  fashion  of  Carlyle's  two  Dumdrudges. 
The  young  man  of  France,  or  Austria,  or  Prussia,  or 
Bavaria,  having  been  in  no  way  consulted  as  to  his 
opinion  concerning  the  matter,  and  with  no  option 
of  refusal,  finds  himself  one  day  confronted  with 
the  order  to  enter  the  trenches  and  kill  the  man  op- 
posite. Now  suppose,  being  a  Prussian,  he  should 
say:  "  I  don't  feel  justified  in  killing  the  man  op- 
posite. I  have  followed  this  particular  dispute  be- 
tween his  Government  and  mine,  and  upon  my  con- 
science I  am  not  at  all  sure  that  he  is  wrong.  I  think 
there  is  a  good  deal  to  be  said  for  his  case.  Par- 
ticularly am  I  a  little  doubtful  of  my  case  when  it 
is  marked  by  the  daily  slaughter  of  children  on  land 
and  sea.  I  cannot  see  that  I  do  the  best  service  to 
my  country  in  killing  the  man  opposite.  He  may 
not  be  altogether  right,  but  I  am  at  least  sure  that 
he  is  not  so  wrong  as  to  justify  me  in  putting  him  to 
death  or  torture." 

Now,  if  what  the  Allies  and  their  supporters  have 
so  often  told  us  is  at  all  true.  Western  Europe  has 
taken  up  arms  on  behalf  of  that  young  heretic  —  to 
bring  about,  that  is,  just  the  moral  revolution  on 

[223] 


the  part  of  his  people  represented  in  his  attitude. 
Mr.  Asquith  has  told  us  that  the  war  is  a  soiritual 
conflict  fought  to  defeat  "  a  monstrous  code  of  in- 
ternational morality  "  into  which  the  German  people 
have  been  entrapped  "  to  the  horror  of  mankind." 
The  war  was  undertaken  to  liberate  them  and  Europe 
from  the  menace  of  certain  political  doctrines  and 
moralities  (such  as  that  whatever  the  State  does  is 
right,  and  that  obligations  to  it  overrule  all  others, 
and  that  men  should  be,  as  certain  members  of  the 
German  Government  have  so  proudly  proclaimed 
themselves,  "  for  their  country,  right  or  wrong"), 
and  to  replace  those  dangerous  doctrines  by  —  again 
to  quote  Mr.  Asquith — "the  enthronement  of  the 
idea  of  right  as  the  governing  idea  "  in  international 
politics. 

But  if  a  nation  is  to  know  what  is  right  in  its  re- 
lations with  others  it  must  in  that  matter  allow  free- 
dom of  conscience  and  discussion,  particularly  free- 
dom to  state  the  view  of  the  other  side.  It  is  not 
an  easy  thing  for  even  a  third  party  to  determine 
the  rights  and  wrongs  of  a  quarrel.  As  for  the  in- 
terested parties,  it  is  humanly  certain  that  each  will 
be  convinced  he  is  absolutely  right  and  the  other 
absolutely  wrong  unless  there  is  a  deliberately  cul- 
tivated capacity  to  "  hear  the  other  side."  And,  as 
Governments  are  made  up  of  human  beings,  they  too 
are  just  as  likely  to  be  incapable  of  fair  and  reason- 
able judgment  in  a  case  in  which  they  are  interested 
parties,  unless  drawn  from  a  population  that  has 
cultivated  the  capacity  for  such  judgment  in  the  only 
way  in  which  it  can  be  cultivated  —  by  the  habit  of 

[224] 


forming  individual  decisions  based  on  the  weighing 
of  both  sides;  unless,  in  other  words,  they  have 
learned  to  "  tolerate  the  heretic  "  and  are  dominated 
by  the  tradition  of  the  need  of  heresy  in  forming 
opinion. 

Now  the  simple  truth  is  that  the  form  in  which  we 
have  established  conscription  has  given  to  the  State 
such  powers  that  it  makes  political  heresy  —  opposi- 
tion to  the  political  religion  of  the  State  —  in  inter- 
national affairs,  a  crime  punishable  with  death.  It 
sounds  fantastic,  but  it  is  a  mere  statement  of  fact. 
Let  us  go  back  to  the  young  conscript  I  have  imagined 
refusing  to  kill  the  man  opposi  2.  Whether  he  be 
German,  French,  Italian,  Russian  or  Turkish,  and 
whether  his  situation  be  that  of  a  submarine  com- 
mander refusing  to  sink  Atlantic  liners  or  an  Al- 
lied aviator  refusing  to  throw  bombs  at  inland  Ger- 
man cities,  if  he  really  persists  there  is  only  one 
result  for  him.     He  is  shot. 

Conscription,  to  be  effective,  must  be  a  conscription 
of  minds  as  well  as  bodies,  just  when  freedom  of 
minds  is  most  needed.  To  allow  real  cleavage  of 
opinion  concerning  the  justice  of  a  State's  cause  to 
grow  up  by  allowing  the  advocacy  of  a  rival  cause 
would  be  to  break  down  national  solidarity,  to  affect 
gravely  the  efficiency  of  the  military  instrument  by 
tainting  its  morale  at  the  source.  Moreover,  the 
State  must  take  charge  not  only  of  the  expression  of 
opinion,  but  of  the  dissemination  of  facts  which 
lead  to  the  formation  of  opinion.  And  if  the  inci- 
dent of  the  trenches  I  have  described  is  not  com- 
moner than  it  is    (though  it  is  commoner  than  we 

[225] 


suppose  It  to  be),  it  Is  largely  because  States  which, 
like  Germany,  knowing  their  military  business,  have 
carried  out  the  intellectual  conscription,  the  "  mobil- 
ization of  the  mental  and  moral  forces  of  the  nation," 
so  thoroughly  before  the  beginning  of  the  war  that 
the  mind  as  well  as  the  body  of  the  conscript  has  been 
suitably  drilled.  The  control  of  the  Press  and  of 
education,  of  the  careers  of  all  who  teach  or  have  in- 
fluence, has  been  as  much  part  of  the  organization 
of  the  nation  for  military  purposes  as  the  physical 
drill  and  regimentation.  And  if  we  wonder  how 
It  Is  that  not  only  sixty  or  seventy  millions  of  people 
In  the  mass,  but  great  scientists,  teachers  and  theo- 
logians as  individuals,  can  subscribe  to  doctrines  and 
support  conduct  which  appear  to  the  outside  world 
as  monstrous,  It  Is  merely  because  we  have  forgotten 
that  any  case,  however  monstrous,  can  be  made  to 
appear  reasonable  and  acceptable  If  we  never  hear 
anything  that  can  be  said  against  It. 

If  we  think  that  a  people  like  the  French  could 
not  possibly,  when  a  like  efficiency  of  organization 
has  had  time  to  do  Its  work,  show  a  like  moral  result, 
then  we  have  probably  forgotten  certain  incidents 
of  their  history,  even  quite  recent  Incidents  like  the 
Dreyfus  affair  and  what  we  said  about  It  and  all 
that  It  meant  at  the  time.  I  do  not  pretend  of  course 
that  no  freedom  In  political  speculation  can  exist  un- 
der conscription  or  allied  systems.  There  has  been 
freedom  of  political  speculation  of  a  kind  in  Ger- 
many, as  her  social  contrivances  like  workmen's  In- 
surance acts,  which  are  models  to  the  world  and 
which  we  have  copied,  show.     In  the  same  way  you 

[226] 


had  periods  of  bold  Intellectual  speculation,  of  a  kind, 
under  the  Inquisition.  The  influence  of  men  like 
Thomas  Aquinas,  one  of  the  acutest  and  most  pene- 
trating thinkers  of  all  time,  was  felt  in  the  most 
priest-ridden  period.  But  although  you  had  intel- 
lectual innovation  in  the  nineteenth  century  in  Ger- 
many and  in  the  fourteenth  century  in  Spain  and 
Italy,  authority  intervened  to  arrest  innovation  at 
just  those  points  where  It  was  most  needed.  And 
with  all  her  political  heresy  the  power  of  the  military 
machine  in  France  has  undoubtedly  worked  to  main- 
tain for  the  most  part  the  old  ideas  in  such  things 
as  nationalism,  patriotism  —  the  v/orth  of  political 
sovereignty  —  to  maintain  just  that  group  of  ideas 
which  of  all  others  needs  most  radical  modification. 
But  for  the  momentum  of  the  old  Nationalist  con- 
ceptions, which  are  so  closely  allied  with  the  military 
organization,  the  result  of  the  attempt  of  the  Cail- 
laux  ministry  to  compose  the  differences  between  the 
great  two  rival  groups  in  Europe  might  have  been 
very  different. 

But  the  French,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  have  escaped 
the  full  flower  of  the  Prussian  result  because  the  cir- 
cumstances of  their  history  during  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury —  the  fact  that  not  once  during  the  whole  of 
that  century  did  they  have  a  Government  sufficiently 
national  to  set  up  a  national  orthodoxy  —  made  it 
impossible  to  organize  the  system  on  its  intellectual 
side.  Since  the  Revolution  there  have  always  been 
in  France,  until  this  war,  large  groups  ready  to  put 
certain  social  and  moral  principles  above  national  de- 
fence, above  the  State.     The  revolutionary  wars  of 

[227] 


France  were  fought  with  a  whole  class  of  French- 
men opposed  to  them,  many  members  of  that  class 
actually  fighting  with  the  enemies  of  France.  It  is 
but  a  symbol  of  what  has  always  been  in  post-revolu- 
tionary France  that  on  the  news  of  the  fall  of  Sedan, 
because  it  meant  the  end  of  the  Empire,  Paris  was 
illuminated;  and  that  in  Paris,  in  the  struggle  of  the 
Commune,  more  Frenchmen  were  killed  by  French- 
men than  had  been  killed  there  in  the  war  by  Ger- 
mans. You  had  here  such  ingrained  habit  of  po- 
litical heresy  that  no  machine  could  readily  cope  with 
it.  No  wonder  France  has  been  intellectually  fairly 
free.  Sufficient  numbers  of  Frenchmen  have  always 
been  ready  to  make  national  defence,  the  efficiency 
of  the  military  machine,  subservient  to  the  retention 
of  certain  freedoms,  as  the  Dreyfus  case  showed. 
But  conscription  —  the  military  organization  —  has 
steadily  fought  these  freedoms,  and  the  tendency  for 
the  needs  of  the  machine  to  override  all  other  con- 
siderations has  at  times  been  so  strong  that,  again 
as  in  the  Dreyfus  affair,  the  control  of  such  tendency 
demanded  for  years  at  a  time  all  the  energies  which 
the  heirs  of  the  liberal  tradition  could  summon  to 
the  task.  If,  as  a  result  of  this  war,  France  is  "  na- 
tionalized "  in  the  sense  of  making  all  political  dif- 
ferences really  subservient  to  the  needs  of  national 
power,  the  increasing  efficiency  of  the  military  ma- 
chine will  make  the  next  Dreyfus  affair  in  its  out- 
come a  Zabern  affair. 

The  question  surely  is  this:  If  the  democracies 
like  England  and  France  are  to  put  first  the  efficient 
working  of  the  national  military  machine  over  a  pe- 

[228] 


riod  of  years,  will  it  not  be  at  the  price  of  a  control  of 
opinion  by  the  State,  as  complete  as  in  Germany? 
And,  if  so,  why  should  we  expect  sensibly  different 
moral  results? 

I  am  not  urging  that  the  difficulties  here  indicated 
necessarily  condemn  resort  to  conscription  in  any 
circumstance  whatever  —  that  is  quite  a  distinct 
problem  —  but  that  we  must  face  squarely  what 
permanent  conscription  involves.  And  it  involves 
undoubtedly  the  suppression  of  freedom  of  con- 
science in  the  larger  and  deeper  political  problems,  in 
some  degree  at  all  times,  and  with  ruthlessness  just 
at  the  time  that  such  freedom  is  most  needed.  In- 
deed, the  position  of  the  modern  political  heretic  is 
in  one  respect  perhaps  worse  than  was  that  of  the 
old  religious  heretic.  The  latter,  in  order  to  be  se- 
cure from  the  attentions  of  the  Holy  Office,  had 
only  to  remain  silent.  That  does  not  protect  the 
modern  heretic.  He  is  taken  out  and  compelled  to 
kill  with  his  own  hand  those  whose  political  faith 
perhaps  he  shares,  or  himself  be  executed. 

Just  imagine  such  a  conception  of  the  powers  of 
the  State  —  of  the  majority,  that  is  —  being  applied 
to  the  Class  War. 

We  have  seen  as  the  result  of  conscription  in  Eng- 
land one  very  important  result:  a  widespread  change 
of  ideas  in  reference  to  the  institution  of  private 
property.  The  justice  of  the  conscription  of  life 
has  led  to  a  very  changed  feeling  as  to  the  justice 
of  the  conscription  of  wealth.  The  economic 
foundation  stone  of  society  is  no  longer  the  right  of 
the  Individual  but  the  interest  of  the  community.     It 

[229] 


Is  not,  as  we  have  seen,  a  mere  matter  of  income  tax. 
Out  of  the  increase  of  state  powers  for  the  purposes 
of  the  war  is  coming  obviously  a  vast  permanent 
change  in  the  relationship  of  the  community  to  the 
control  of  public  utihties  like  the  railroads,  the  dis- 
tribution of  necessaries  like  coal,  means  of  communi- 
cation generally,  insurance  and  so  forth.  All  these 
economic  changes  carry  with  them  great  political  and 
social  changes.  The  construction,  for  instance,  by 
the  American  government  of  what  may  ultimately 
be  the  greatest  merchant  marine  in  the  world,  and 
its  ownership  by  the  state,  will  involve,  not  only 
questions  of  traffic  rates,  and  commercial  policy,  but 
the  whole  foreign  policy  of  the  nation.  It  is  per- 
haps the  greatest  experiment  in  socialism  ever  at- 
tempted by  any  modern  state ;  and  it  will  be  attempted 
by  the  state  which  of  all  others  has  been  heretofore 
most  hostile  to  Socialist  tendencies. 

That  change  in  fundamental  social  ideas  will  have 
come  as  the  unintended  result  of  a  "  temporary  "  war 
measure.  And  what  is  true  of  the  building  of  ships, 
the  nationahzation  of  the  railroads,  an  eighty  per 
cent,  income  tax,  the  control  of  food  prices,  will  be 
true  of  more  far  reaching  measures  still,  like  the 
"  work  or  fight  "  law;  all  affected  by  the  "  argument 
from  conscription."  Even  though  we  abolish  con- 
scription it  will  leave  its  indelible  traces.  We  shall 
not  be  able  to  go  back  altogether  to  the  old  order. 

If  we  would  get  a  forecast  of  what  the  powers  of 
a  socialized  state  might  be,  just  note  what  is  in- 
volved in  the  principle  of  the  "  work  or  fight  "  law. 
When  we  declare  that  those  who  do  not  fight  shall 

[230] 


work,  we  must  also  dictate  what  they  shall  work  at, 
what  shall  in  fact,  constitute  work.  We  are  doing 
so  already  in  the  case  of  the  less  fortunate  socially: 
messengers,  attendants,  servants.  Under  any  really 
socialist  system  the  same  rule  would  apply  to  the 
well-to-do.  What  are  the  essential  occupations? 
An  inventor  declares  himself  on  the  track  of  a  great 
discovery  —  inventors  are  always  on  the  track  of 
great  discoveries,  and  until  the  discoveries  are  actu- 
ally made,  are  always  regarded  by  their  friends, 
neighbours  and  families  as  hopeless  cranks.  Could 
we  hope  that  officials  or  commissions  pledged  to  do 
their  best  for  recruiting  a  labour  army  would  take 
a  more  lenient  view?  As  to  the  man  thinking  out 
social  and  moral  problems  —  is  that  "work"? 
Could  it  be  accepted  as  grounds  for  exemption  from 
the  industrial  draft?  Is  it  so  accepted  from  bud- 
ding geniuses  now  in  the  case  of  the  military  con- 
scription? As  to  poetry,  art,  music,  philosophy  — 
shall  we  exempt  self-styled  poets  and  artists  from  the 
labour-conscription  while  their  brothers  toil?  At 
present  their  exemption  from  labour  is  their  own 
risk  —  the  risk  of  starvation  or  wearing  out  the  pa- 
tience of  their  friends  and  family  upon  whom  they 
may  live.  But  no  such  freedom  could  be  accorded 
under  a  social  system  in  which  the  obligation  to 
work  was  enforced  in  the  same  way  that  we  now 
enforce  the  obligation  to  fight. 

We  may  at  first  sight  regard  all  this  as  fanciful. 
But  the  application  of  the  present  temper  to  a  Bol- 
shevist order  —  and  the  present  temperamental 
tendencies  are  the  natural  forerunner  of  Bolshevism 

[231] 


—  would  give  us  a  system  In  which  oppressions  like 
those  just  indicated  would  daily  confront  unpopular 
minorities.  If  poetry  and  research  and  music  be- 
came associated  in  the  minds  of  the  mass  with 
"counter-revolutionary  "  tendencies  —  as  well  they 
might  —  the  Tribunals  of  the  Industrial  Draft  could 
be  depended  upon  to  see  that  all  bourgeois  tainted 
with  such  anti-socialist  heresies  got  about  the  same 
treatment  that  we  now  accord  to  conscientious  ob- 
jectors to  the  military  service.  Something  resem- 
bling that  has  already  happened  under  the  Bolshev^ 
iks  in  Russia. 

To  suppose  that  the  feeling  of  our  people  about 
individual  freedom  during  the  last  four  years  in  Eu- 
rope and  the  last  eighteen  months  in  America  applies 
to  war  time  only,  and  that  it  will  suddenly  cease  with 
the  declaration  of  peace,  is  to  assume  that  there  is 
no  such  thing  as  psychological  habit  or  momentum. 

The  directing  of  public  opinion  by  governments 

—  establishment  of  vast  bureaux  where  officials  un- 
dertake the  work  of  "  inspiring  "  editors  and  writers, 
sending  out  lecturers  —  hundreds  and  thousands  — . 
to  give  the  "  governmental  "  view  of  policy,  all  this, 
is  a  thing  which  five  years  ago  we  of  the  Western 
democracies  would  have  looked  upon  with  detesta- 
tion as  the  very  negation  of  democratic  government, 
as  incompatible  with  the  free  state.  Today  it  does 
not  excite  the  least  hostility.  It  is  adopted,  not  as 
something  we  apply  with  keen  regret  as  a  hard  neces- 
sity, but  in  very  many  cases  with  evident  relish,  or 
as  something  we  have  simply  no  feeling  about. 
There  is  no  reason  why  the  control  of  opinion  by  the 

[232] 


State  (through  official  "news"  agencies;  surveil- 
lance of  educational  institutions,  etc.)  should  not  be- 
come an  accepted  practice. 

Many  of  these  war  time  institutions  are  bound  to 
survive  for  a  very  long  time,  not  only  because  most 
of  the  arguments  which  justify  them  as  war  time 
measures  will  also  justify  them  as  a  necessary  part 
of  preparedness  for  war  —  necessary  to  the  proper 
maintenance  of  universal  military  service  in  peace 
time,  for  instance, —  but  also  because  the  difficulties 
of  demobilization  will  prolong  for  a  very  consider- 
able period  many  of  the  conditions  of  actual  war. 
The  re-entrance  into  civil  life  of  tens  of  millions  of 
men  throughout  the  world;  the  turn  over  of  indus- 
tries from  a  war  basis  to  a  peace  one;  the  allocation 
of  raw  materials  and  their  rationing;  the  common 
help  to  devastated  countries  like  Belgium,  France, 
Poland,  Armenia ;  the  teaching  of  trades  to  miUions 
of  wounded  and  semi-incapables;  the  allocation  of 
pensions  and  allowances;  the  adaptation  of  finance 
and  commerce  to  new  political  and  social  conditions, 
all  of  which  is  a  part  of  demobilization,  must  be  a 
matter  of  some  years.  It  implies  the  retention  of 
vast  governmental  and  bureaucratic  if  not  of  mili- 
tary powers.  Pensions,  allowances,  compensations, 
will  be  made  contingent  in  some  degree  probably 
upon  "  good  conduct  ";  which  will  mean,  in  practice, 
conformity  to  the  political  opinion  of  the  government 
for  the  time  being.  Already  educational  authorities, 
in  England  as  well  as  in  the  United  States,  have  de- 
cided that  they  will  refuse  henceforth  to  employ 
"  conscientious  objectors."     A  recent  Act  of  Parlia- 

[233] 


ment  disfranchises  them.  Later  on  a  "  Labour  gov- 
ernment "  grappling  with  its  early  difficulties  and 
the  opposition  of  anti-Labour  —  "bourgeois"  and 
counter-revolutionary-groups,  will  not  hesitate  to 
take  over  for  its  own  purposes  existing  principles  and 
methods.  The  Labour  government  will  maintain 
its  Press  Bureaux,  and  Committees  of  Public  In- 
formation, but  use  them  for  the  governmental  in- 
doctrination of  the  people  with  the  true  Socialistic 
Gospel.  School  teachers  and  university  professors 
who  presume  to  criticize  the  new  order  will  be  re- 
moved; public  men  who  do  so  will  be  hounded  by  a 
"  kept "  press  under  the  lash  of  "  the  new  patriot- 
ism " ;  the  Postmasters  General  ^  will  be  empowered 
to  open  the  letters  of  private  persons;  everybody  will 
be  encouraged  to  become  a  spy  upon  everybody  else 
and  to  report  "  disloyal  remarks  "  in  private  con- 
versation; and  the  L  W.  W.  will  constitute  a  Com- 
mittee of  Vigilantes  to  listen  to  sermons,  note  the 
remarks  of  teachers,  censor  books  and  plays;  and 
finally  of  course,  we  shall  have  a  law  that  no  one  of 
"  bourgeois  associations  "  shall  hold  public  office  of 
any  kind.  And  so  it  will  go  on  until  the  new  tyranny 
becomes  as  loathsome  as  the  old,  and  the  new  order 
also  breaks  down. 

^  Section  4  of  the  Sedition  Act  reads : 

"  The  Postmaster  General  may,  upon  evidence  satisfactory  to  him 
that  any  person  or  concern  is  using  the  mails  in  violation  of  any  of 
the  provisions  of  this  Act,  instruct  the  postmaster  at  any  post  office 
at  which  mail  is  received  addressed  to  such  person  or  concern  to 
return  to  the  postmaster  at  the  office  at  which  they  were  originally 
mailed  all  letters  or  other  matter  so  addressed,  with  the  words 
'  Mail  to  this  address  undeliverable  under  Espionage  Act '  plainly 
written  or  stamped  upon  the  outside  thereof,  and  all  such  letters 
or  other  matter  so  returned  to  such  postmasters  shall  be  by  them 
returned  to  the  senders  thereof  under  such  regulations  as  the  Post- 
master General  may  prescribe." 

[234] 


This  Is  not  mere  fanciful  banter.  It  is  so  little 
impossible  that  we  have  seen  it  all  actually  happen 
before  our  eyes  within  a  few  months  in  Russia;  and 
what  has  happened  in  Russia  is  so  little  exceptional 
or  extraordinary  that  it  is  in  lesser  or  greater  degree 
the  invariable  rule  of  every  revolution.  All  the 
bright  hopes  of  past  efforts  at  a  really  new  order 
have  been  wrecked  upon  this  one  rock:  human  lust 
for  the  coercion  of  those  of  contrary  opinion;  the 
complete  lack  of  faith  in  freedom  as  a  method  of 
human  intercourse.  Mankind  has  failed  in  these 
efforts  because  men  do  not  yet  love  freedom;  do  not 
believe  in  it,  do  not  understand  its  need,  or  the 
grounds  upon  which  it  is  necessary  to  preserve  it. 


[235] 


CHAPTER  II 

THE   HERD   AND   ITS    HATRED   OF    FREEDOM 

The  deep-seated  hatred  of  those  who  have  the  insufferable 
impudence  to  disagree  with  us  is  one  of  the  strongest  and 
most  constant  motives  in  history  often  ruthlessly  over-riding 
economic  and  other  considerations,  yet  seldom  taken  into 
account.  The  motive  has  strong  biological  justification,  but 
like  other  instincts  of  self-preservation  may  destroy  us  if 
yielded  to  indiscriminately  without  foresight  of  consequences. 
How  the  social  machinery  of  modern  societj'  tends  to  develop 
this  herd  feeling.  Two  essays  for  war  time :  "  The  Prob- 
lem of  Northcliffe  " ;  "  De  Haeretico  Comburiendo,  or  *  Now 
Is  Not  the  Time.'  " 

Although  an  almost  universal  discredit  has 
fallen,  both  upon  the  over-intellectualization  of  mo- 
tive in  the  explanation  of  conduct,  and  upon  "  util- 
ity "  as  its  basis,  we  still  find  a  curious  disinclination 
to  give  any  considerable  place  to  psychological  and 
temperamental  motives  as  factors  in  the  shaping 
of  human  society.  Thus,  although,  as  already 
noted,  it  becomes  more  and  more  evident  that  we 
must  accept  as  one  of  the  predominant  factors  of 
history  a  real  hatred  of  those  who  have  the  insuf- 
ferable impudence  to  disagree  with  us  (the  incred- 
ible horrors  of  religious  persecution,  the  massacres, 
wars,  inquisitions,  are  inexplicable  unless  we  give  a 

[236] 


large  place  to  this  fact  in  human  nature),  we  find  our 
historians  attempting  to  explain  the  religious  wars 
and  the  history  of  such  institutions  as  the  inquisition 
in  economic  or  "  realist  "  terms  —  as  though  any- 
thing could  be  more  "  real "  than  the  satisfaction  of 
a  great  fundamental  instinct,  an  instinct  as  deep- 
seated  almost  as  the  instincts  of  sex  or  hunger. 

So  at  the  present  moment,  the  feeling  of  most 
Americans  probably  is  that  there  can  be  no  real 
danger  of  tyranny  or  oppression  in  American  policy, 
foreign  or  domestic,  because  there  is  no  "  selfish  in- 
terest "  involved:  the  country  is  asking  nothing  from 
Germany  and  in  the  suppression  of  anti-war  or  anti- 
national  expressions  is  demanding  only  conformity 
to  a  cause  which  is  as  noble  as  ever  inspired  a  great 
people. 

The  religious  persecutions,  so  far  as  the  mass  of 
the  people  were  concerned,  were  entirely  disinterested 
and  unselfish.  The  intense  popular  feeling  which 
demanded  the  suppression  of  heresy  derived  from 
no  "  economic  "  interest.  That  feeling  was  in  large 
measure  the  conviction  that  in  maintaining  true  reli- 
gion the  persecutors  were  maintaining  morality  and 
good  conduct,  the  welfare  of  society  in  this  world  as 
well  as  the  salvation  of  their  children  in  the  next. 
The  laws  and  institutions  which  become  the  most 
serious  menace  to  rriankind  are  precisely  those  that 
can  appeal  to  much  that  is  good.  Institutions  which 
can  appeal  only  to  evil  could  never  become  powerful 
enough  to  become  a  menace.^ 

1  Nothing  seems  to  make  us  so  wicked  as  a  conviction  of  right- 
eousness based  on  passionate  intuition.     Lea's  "  History  of  the  In- 

[237] 


That  indeed  Is  the  danger  of  the  herd  instinct 
itself  —  the  fact  that  in  a  measure  it  is  essential  to 
any  society.  Without  a  certain  unity  of  feeling 
paving  the  way  to  unity  of  action,  there  can  be  no 
workable  social  order.  In  the  crowded  traffic  of 
the  modern  city  we  must  all  go  to  the  right  or  all 
go  to  the  left.  It  does  not  matter  much  which  it  is, 
so  long  as  we  all  do  the  same  thing.  For  some  to 
insist  on  going  to  the  left  while  the  others  go  to 
the  right,  is  to  endanger  all,  and  the  majority  have 
the  right  to  insist  upon  conformity  to  the  common 
rule.  The  strong  instinct  to  exact  unified  conduct 
even  at  the  cost  of  coercion,  may  well  have  its  re- 
mote origins  in  the  flock,  the  herd,  the  bee  hive, 
where  the  very  existence  of  the  community,  as  a  com- 
munity, depended  upon  a  common  policy  commonly 
observed. 

The  motive  may  well  be  protective,  biologically. 
Yet,  like  other  Instincts  of  self-preservation,  or  which 
have  great  survival  value,  it  may  destroy  us  as  well 
as  protect  us  if  yielded  to  indiscriminately  without 
foresight  of  consequences.  It  is  a  self-protective  in- 
stinct which  prompts  us  to  rush  out  of  a  theatre  when 
some  one  shouts  that  it  is  on  fire.     If  five  thousand 

quisition  "  (Vol.  I,  p.  228)  tells  us  that  under  the  law  of  the  medi- 
aeval church:  "The  son  must  denounce  the  father  and  the  husband 
was  guilty  if  he  did  not  deliver  his  wife  to  a  frightful  death.  .  .  . 
No  pledge  was  to  remain  unbroken.  It  was  an  old  rule  that  faith 
was  not  to  be  kept  with  heretics.  As  Innocent  III  emphatically 
phrased  it,  '  according  to  the  canons  faith  is  not  to  be  kept  with  him 
who  keeps  not  faith  with  God.'  No  oath  of  secrecy,  therefore,  was 
binding  in  a  matter  of  heresy,  for  if  one  is  faithful  to  a  heretic,  he 
is  unfaithful  to  God." 

Transpose  God  into  Patriotism,  or  Fatherland,  and  you  have  the 
moral  basis  of  modern  Prussianism. 

[238] 


people  yield  to  that  instinct  without  discipline  and 
without  moral  self-control,  their  action  may  result, 
not  in  protection,  but  distaster.  Their  safety  depends 
upon  not  obeying  their  instinct,  upon  its  repression, 
upon  self  discipline,  based  on  rationalized  experi- 
ence. 

What  the  uncontrolled  instinct  of  the  herd  has 
done  to  human  society  in  the  past  such  incidents  as 
the  religious  persecutions,  and  the  influence  of  re- 
ligious institutions  upon  the  political  and  social  or- 
ganization of  Europe  during  some  centuries,  suffi- 
ciently tells.  We  have  a  feeling  that  never  again 
could  such  things  be  duplicated.  But  history  —  par- 
ticularly the  history  of  the  last  four  years  —  gives 
not  the  slightest  justification  for  any  such  hope.  We 
may  well  transfer  our  errors  from  the  religious  to 
the  political  field;  but  they  may  well  be  as  mischiev- 
ous in  the  one  as  in  the  other. 

It  is  a  fatuous  and  dangerous  optimism  which 
would  see  in  the  characteristic  machinery  of  indus- 
trial society  —  our  popular  press,  our  rapid  means  of 
communication,  our  mechanical  efficiency  —  any  pro- 
tection against  the  tyrannies  which  have  cursed  men 
in  the  past.  These  mechanisms  may  well  become 
instruments  for  the  satisfaction  of  these  widespread 
passions  in  a  fashion  which  the  two  essays  that  fol- 
low attempt  to  indicate.  They  are  here  reproduced 
as  pertinent  to  our  present  problem.  The  first  is  a 
consideration  of  the  modern  press  as  a  social  and 
political  force. 

[239] 


*'  THE   PROBLEM   OF   NORTHCLIFFE    ' 

Let  an  American  imagine  that  New  York  is  not 
only  the  largest  city  in  the  Union,  but  that  it  is  also 
the  seat  of  the  national  government;  and  that  the 
government  has  absorbed  to  itself  most  of  the  func- 
tions now  exercised  by  the  governments  of  the  states, 
so  that  state  politics  have  ceased  to  have  any  real  in- 
terest or  importance,  even  in  the  states  themselves. 
Let  him  imagine  further  that  participation  in  the  poli- 
cies of  this  centralized  government  is  a  mark  of  social 
distinction,  so  that  pohtics  are  largely  in  the  hands 
of  the  socially  prominent,  and  the  city  is  also  the 
country's  artistic  and  literary  centre  —  in  short,  the 
only  capital  that  counts.  Let  him  imagine  further 
that  this  centralized  government  holds  office,  not 
for  fixed  periods,  but  at  the  pleasure  of  a  legisla- 
ture split  into  five  or  six  distinct  groups;  that  the 
legislature  itself  is  not  elected  immovably  for  fixed 
periods  but  may  by  the  fortunes  of  politics  find  itself 
confronted  at  any  moment  by  a  general  election,  or 
by  a  by-election  which  may  affect  party  fortunes; 
may,  in  other  words,  find  itself  at  the  mercy  of  the 
popular  feeling  of  the  moment. 

Then  let  the  American's  already  overtaxed  im- 
agination conceive  that  New  York  can  be  reached 
from  the  remotest  corner  of  the  Union  in  a  few 

[240] 


hours,  so  that  newspapers  of  the  capital  can  ap- 
pear almost  simultaneously  in  Boston,  Washington, 
Baltimore,  New  Orleans,  Chicago,  St.  Louis,  Cin- 
cinnati, Pittsburgh,  Denver,  Omaha,  Los  Angeles, 
and  San  Francisco  —  which  cities,  having  no  state 
or  local  politics  that  matter,  would  be  mainly  in- 
terested in  those  of  New  York.  Then  let  him  im- 
agine that  of  these  New  York  papers,  the  Times,  the 
World,  the  Tribune,  the  American  and  Journal,  to- 
gether with  a  score  of  weeklies  like  Collier's  or  the 
Saturday  Evening  Post,  domestic  publications  like 
The  Ladies'  Home  Journal  and  a  few  monthly  maga- 
zines, amounting  to  some  sixty  publications,  were  all, 
together  with  forest  and  paper  mills  for  their  manu- 
facture, owned  by  one  large  trust,  so  entrenched  by 
its  vast  capital  resources  and  its  facilities  for 
economical  and  reciprocal  publicity  as  to  be  able  in- 
stantly to  steam-roller  any  real  competition;  and, 
finally,  that  the  controlling  shareholder  of  this  trust 
is  also  its  active  head,  a  man  combining  unusual  ad- 
ministrative capacity  and  relentless  energy  with  an 
incomparable  genius  for  the  understanding  of  the 
popular  state  of  mind.  The  American  who  can  in 
imagination  grasp  all  those  various  factors  will  un- 
derstand something  of  the  influence  exercised  by  Al- 
fred Harmsworth,  first  Baron  Northcliffe,^  in  Eng- 
lish opinion  and  politics. 

I  have,  of  course,  for  purposes  of  clarity  exag- 
gerated somewhat  the  contrast  of  conditions.  It 
is  obvious,  for  instance,  that  Manchester  and  Edin- 

1  Written  in  1916.    Lord  NorthcHffe  is  now  a  Viscount. 
[241] 


burgh  are  in  some  degree  centres  of  intellectual 
and  political  life  offsetting  the  influence  of  London. 
But  the  general  truth  of  the  contrast  remains.  The 
problem  of  Northcliffe  is  the  problem  of  capitalistic 
industry  with  its  tendency  to  centralization  and  com- 
bination applied  to  newspaper  production.  I  have 
put  the  case  in  this  way  because  the  American  who 
thinks  of  it  in  terms  of  existing  American  conditions 
will  not  realize  its  gravity  in  England.  The  condi- 
tions I  have  just  described  are  found  in  any  other 
great  country  to  a  lesser  degree,  but  in  England  they 
are  very  acute.  Yet  the  decisions  which  they  will 
affect  do  not  concern  England  alone ;  for  the  political 
decisions  of  England,  by  reason  of  her  historical,  geo- 
graphical, and  economical  circumstances,  affect  the 
whole  world.  They  will  necessarily  determine  in 
large  part  the  course  of  the  Allied  Powers  during 
the  next  few  years,  and  so  the  character  of  western 
civilization  for,  it  may  be,  generations.  If,  as  some- 
one has  said,  "  no  man  nor  government  can  hold  of- 
fice, nor  policy  succeed  in  England  save  by  the  grace 
of  Lord  Northcliffe,"  can  that  individual  determine 
by  his  personal  will  the  future  of  western  civilization? 
The  question  receives  commonly  two  answers  in 
England;  both,  in  my  view,  dangerously  false  and 
misleading.  The  first  is  to  the  effect  —  and  this 
was  until  a  year  or  two  since  the  almost  universal 
one  —  that  the  influence  of  the  Northcliffe  press  is 
far  more  apparent  than  real.  That  what  it  does  is 
intelligently  to  anticipate  what  in  any  case  will  take 
place  —  the  German  war,  conscription,  or  what  not 
—  advocate  it,  and  then  appropriate  the  credit  for 

[242] 


having  brought  it  about;  that  as  its  influence  depends 
upon  faithfully  reflecting  public  opinion  it  cannot 
lead  or  control  it;  that,  like  a  barometer,  it  registers 
the  weather  and  has  no  part  in  determining  it.  The 
opposed  school  is  typified  by  those  whose  one  sug- 
gestion for  the  maintenance  or  making  of  peace,  for 
the  success  of  a  league  of  nations,  for  the  improve- 
ment of  relations  with  America  or  what  not  is  "  the 
conversion  of  Northcliffe."  If  Northcliffe  would  but 
will  it,  the  aspirations  of  mankind  throughout  the 
ages  would  at  last  be  realized.  English  reformers 
and  friends  of  peace  have  on  many  occasions  plain- 
tively urged  this  upon  the  present  writer. 

As  to  the  first  of  these  views  —  that  Lord  North- 
cliffe's  influence  does  not  really  count  —  it  is  voiced 
most  energetically  perhaps  by  those  whose  beliefs 
on  concrete  political  and  public  affairs  have  been 
most  largely  —  though  unconsciously  —  determined 
by  just  the  forces  they  belittle.  I  have  known  an 
English  householder  talk  most  contemptuously  of 
**  this  Harmsworth  fellow  and  his  half-penny  sen- 
sations "  and  become  indignant  at  the  notion  that 
he  could  be  influenced  in  his  opinions  thereby;  and 
yet  reveal,  on  cross-examination,  that  practically 
every  piece  of  printed  matter  that  came  into  his 
home  (and  was  ever  read)  came  from  just  that 
despised  source.  "  But  I  don't  take  my  opinions 
from  the  papers;  I  never  read  their  leading  articles." 
I  led  him  on  to  expressions  of  opinion  concerning 
the  government  of  the  day,  its  merits  and  demerits, 
his  estimate  of  the  persons  that  compose  it,  of  the 
character  of  other  nations,  his  notions  of  fiscal  policy, 

[243] 


of  national  education,  of  the  country's  past  and  fu- 
ture foreign  policy,  and  so  on.  Every  opinion  he 
expressed  responded  accurately  to  just  that  distribu- 
tion of  emphasis  In  the  news  of  our  time  which  marks 
the  Northcliffe  press.  Given  the  facts  as  this  house- 
holder conceived  them,  he  could  come  to  no  other 
opinion ;  and  those  facts  —  one  group  of  them 
stressed  day  after  day  and  another  group  Intrinsically 
as  Important  quietly  hidden  away  In  corners  —  were 
presented  as  Lord  Northcliffe  had  decreed  they 
should  be  presented.  I  tested  my  householder  as  to 
his  knowledge  of  some  essentials.  Did  he  know 
of  such  and  such  action  by  such  and  such  foreign 
government?  Of  such  and  such  statement  In  Par- 
liament? Of  the  result  of  such  and  such  official  in- 
quiry? He  did  not;  it  was  not  intended  that  he 
should.  His  estimate  of  such  and  such  a  public  man 
was  formed  of  headline  or  paragraph  summaries 
made  by  hostile  journalists  of  parliamentary 
speeches.  My  householder's  vague  impression  that 
a  certain  public  man  had  a  great  future  was  due  In 
reality  to  hearing  the  women  of  the  family  talk  so 
much  about  him :  and  that  was  due  to  the  frequency 
with  which  pictures  of  the  said  public  man's  babies, 
held  lovingly  by  their  saintly  mother,  appeared  in 
The  Weekly  Home  Comforter  or  some  other  publi- 
cation which  combines  the  overt  distribution  of  paper 
patterns  with  successfully  concealed  promotion  of 
certain  political  causes. 

Obviously  what  England  thinks  Is  largely  con- 
trolled by  one  man;  not  by  the  direct  expression 
of  any  opinion  of  his  own  but  by  controlling  the 

[244] 


distribution  of  emphasis  in  the  telling  of  facts,  so 
stressing  one  group  of  them  day  after  day  and  keep- 
ing another  group  in  the  background  as  to  make  a 
given  conclusion  inevitable.  And  this,  it  will  be  said, 
justifies  those  who  maintain  that  Northcliffe  does  in 
fact  control  the  mind  and  opinion  of  his  nation,  and 
that  he  can  by  that  means  direct  its  policies  and  des- 
tiny. 

Well,  dangerous  as  that  personal  power  un- 
doubtedly in  certain  circumstances  may  be,  I  do 
not  believe  that  it  is  by  any  means  the  most  danger- 
ous element  in  those  English  conditions  I  have  de- 
scribed. For  there  are  very  definite  limits  to  it; 
and  it  is  precisely  in  the  nature  of  those  limits  that 
we  shall  find  a  hint  of  a  far  greater  danger. 

Let  us  see  first  just  how  the  power  of  a  news- 
paper corporation  is  limited,  in,  say  the  matter  of 
peace  and  war.  Assume,  for  the  sake  of  illustration, 
that  the  growth  of  militarism  in  Germany,  of  the 
party  of  aggression,  during  the  last  ten  or  fifteen 
years  would  have  been  checked,  and  liberal  and  in- 
ternationalist tendencies  developed  in  that  country 
if  England  had  devised  an  acceptable  plan  by  which 
Germany  had  been  guaranteed  real  equality  of 
economic  opportunity  in  the  undeveloped  areas  of 
the  world  —  in  Egypt,  Morocco,  and  the  rest  of 
Africa  —  and  a  real  economic  right  of  way  through 
to  the  Near  East.  Suppose  this  plan  to  be  so  far- 
reaching  that  it  would  be  patent  to  the  German  peo- 
ple as  a  whole  that  they  were  in  no  way  encircled, 
or  menaced  in  their  economic  interest,  or  excluded 
from  opportunities  equal  to  those  of  other  great 

[245] 


peoples.  Let  us  assume  that  England  had  been  pre- 
pared to  Internationalize  her  own  imperially  gov- 
erned territory  and  to  use  her  influence  with  France 
to  secure  the  application  of  a  similar  policy  in  French 
Africa. 

Now,  if  the  head  of  a  great  newspaper  combina- 
tion had  believed  that  along  some  such  lines  as  these 
peace  and  the  gradual  liberalization  of  German  pol- 
icy would  have  been  secured,  could  he  have  used 
his  power  for  the  promotion  of  that  policy?  To 
ask  of  the  English  people  some  surrender  of  sover- 
eignty in  their  imperially  governed  territories  — 
which  would  have  been  necessary  to  make  such  a 
policy  successful  —  would  have  run  counter  to 
firmly  established  notions  of  national  right  and 
dignity;  it  would  have  made  many  Englishmen  un- 
comfortable and  disturbed,  and  the  whole  thing 
would  have  been  very  easily  capable  of  misrepre- 
sentation. The  first  thought  and  natural  impulse 
of  a  proud  and  imperially-minded  people  would  have 
been  all  against  it,  a  fact  which  would  certainly  not 
have  been  lost  upon  the  trade  rivals  of  this  sup- 
posititious newspaper  proprietor.  Those  rivals  — 
if  they  had  been  at  all  technically  efficient  —  would 
have  been  able  to  secure  a  popular  reaction  to  appeals 
to  old-established  conceptions  and  prejudices,  to  im- 
pulse, and  passion,  long  before  any  large  response 
could  have  been  provoked  by  appeals  to  second 
thoughts  and  rationally  justified  policies.  These 
rivals  would,  moreover,  have  found  capital  and  ad- 
vertising among  the  special  groups  menaced  by  the 
proposed     new     policy.     Had     Lord     Northchffe 

[246] 


adopted  such  a  line  fifteen  years  ago,  he  would  not 
now  be  Lord  Northcliffe.  Had  his  been  the  sort  of 
mind  to  be  attracted  to  such  a  policy  it  would  not 
be  the  sort  that  is  predominantly  popular  — "  the 
common  mind  to  an  uncommon  degree."  If,  when 
he  first  entered  journalism  —  some  years  before  the 
Boer  War  —  he  had  left  to  others  the  task  of  giv- 
ing expression  to  all  those  widespread  impulses  and 
feelings  that  lie  near  the  surface  of  our  nature,  and 
had  exploited  rather  the  much  more  slowly  aroused 
sentiment  of  rationality,  some  other  proprietor 
would  have  entered  the  neglected  field;  and  the  con- 
trol of  big  circulations  —  and  national  destinies  — 
would  now  be  in  other  hands.  Where,  as  between 
two  pohcies,  the  instinctive  motives  of  conduct  are 
pretty  evenly  balanced,  the  power  of  an  individual 
in  Lord  Northcliffe's  position  is  of  course  decisive. 
But  in  those  situations  a  small  power  may  be  de- 
cisive. 

Where  Lord  Northcliffe  may  seem  for  a  time  to 
maintain  a  policy  which  runs  counter  to  popular 
clamour  of  the  moment — as  when  the  Daily  Mail 
was  burned  in  the  Stock  Exchange  because  of  its 
persistent  attacks  on  Kitchener  at  the  time  of  the 
shell  shortage  —  it  merely  means  that  he  knows 
what  the  public  wants  better  than  the  public  knows. 
He  knew  that  their  desire  for  victory  was  suflliciently 
near  the  surface,  suflSciently  formulated  and  over- 
whelming, for  them  to  digest  anything  which  he 
could  show  to  be  necessary  for  that  purpose.  And 
his  rivals,  in  disparaging  the  line  he  took,  showed 
themselves  (since  they  too  supported  the  war  "  to 

[247] 


the  bitter  end  ")  his  inferiors  both  in  patriotism  and 
in  real  understanding  of  the  popular  mind. 

In  this  matter  of  the  shell  shortage  particularly, 
as  in  most  of  the  other  campaigns  which  he  has 
conducted,  the  abuse  which  has  in  the  past  been 
levelled  at  Northcliffe  is  as  silly  and  ignorant  as  the 
disparagement  of  his  influence.  It  is  of  the  essence 
of  his  success  that  his  social  and  political  ideals  should 
be  the  common  and  accepted  ones  of  his  time.  Un- 
til the  war  the  Northcliffe  press  had  no  particular 
politics  and  was  perhaps  on  the  whole  the  most  im- 
partial in  England.  It  admitted,  in  the  form  of 
signed  articles,  an  expression  of  views  hostile  to 
its  own  to  a  degree  that  the  papers  who  were  so 
ready  to  gird  at  it  could  not  boast.  If,  since  the 
war.  Lord  Northcliffe  has  so  selected  daily  facts 
as  to  tell  in  favour  of  his  country's  cause  and  against 
the  enemy's;  to  maintain  by  hate  and  anger  the 
country's  fighting  temper;  to  discredit  views  which 
might  abate  that  temper,  and  persons  who  do  not 
share  it,  he  has  ample  justification  in  the  example 
of  the  country's  government  and  ordinarily  accepted 
standards  of  patriotism. 

The  real  problem  of  Northcliffe  is  not  in  a  person 
but  in  social,  psychological,  and  industrial  conditions. 
If  it  had  not  been  Northchffe,  it  would  have  been 
some  one  else  whose  personality  would  have  swayed 
within  the  range  of  the  limits  I  have  indicated,  the 
national  action  of  his  time.  The  fact  which  ought 
to  disquiet  us  is  the  nature  of  those  limits.  They 
reveal  —  as  in  the  instance  I  have  chosen  —  the 
operation  of  a  psychological  Gresham  law.     Just  as 

[248] 


In  commerce  debased  coin,  If  there  be  enough  of  it, 
must  drive  out  the  sterhng,  so  in  the  contest  of  mo- 
tives, action  which  responds  to  the  more  primitive 
feelings  and  impulses,  first  thoughts,  established 
prejudice,  can  be  stimulated  by  the  modern  news- 
paper far  more  easily  than  action  which  is  prompted 
by  rationalized  second  thought.  Any  newspaper  ap- 
pealing to  the  former  group  of  motives  must  "  get 
away  with  it "  long  before  that  which  appeals  to 
the  second  can  establish  its  case.  And  this  premium 
upon  the  more  dangerous  type  of  action,  modern 
conditions  of  industry  and  finance  tend  to  increase. 

When  Swift  wrote  his  pamphlet  "  The  Conduct 
of  the  Allies  "  he  presented  a  point  of  view  con- 
trary to  the  accepted  one  and  profoundly  affected 
his  country's  opinion  and  policy.  Yet  at  most  he 
circulated  ten  thousand  copies.  It  was  printed,  I 
believe,  at  his  own  expense.  Any  printer  in  a  back 
street  could  have  furnished  all  the  material  capital 
necessary  for  reaching  effectively  the  whole  reading 
public  of  the  nation.  Today,  for  an  unfamiliar 
opinion  to  gain  headway  as  against  accepted  opinion, 
the  mere  mechanical  equipment  of  propaganda  would 
be  beyond  the  resources  of  any  ordinary  individual. 
A  newspaper  —  the  only  effective  medium  for  pam- 
phleteering in  our  day  —  is  an  important  industrial 
undertaking,  demanding  grave  financial  risks  which 
the  ordinary  capitalist  will  not  face  unless  he  is  pretty 
sure  of  popular  support.  No  newspaper  can  be 
financially  successful  as  against  well  established  rivals 
If  it  champions  unpopular  opinions. 

This  means  In  practice  the  stereotyping  of  all  those 
[249] 


social  and  political  conceptions  in  which  easily 
aroused  passion  and  feeling  are  involved,  those  con- 
ceptions rooted,  not  necessarily  in  the  deepest  in- 
stincts, but  in  the  most  easily  awakened.  The  net 
result  of  the  process  I  have  sketched  is  a  tempera- 
mental and  moral  conservatism,  a  reversion  to  primi- 
tive instinct,  and  the  sloughing  of  the  more  lately 
acquired  social  qualities.  That  may  seem  a  strange 
statement  when  we  remember  that  England  has  for 
the  purposes  of  the  war  made  overnight  changes  in 
the  direction  of  state  socialism  which  in  time  of  peace 
half  a  century  of  agitation  could  not  have  produced. 
But  the  temperamental  and  moral  foundations  of 
those  policies  are  not  new;  they  are  as  old  as  the 
tribal  grouping  of  mankind  —  which,  you  will  kindly 
note,  does  not  happen  to  have  sufficed  for  our  social 
needs.  The  ready  submission  to  authority,  the  sub- 
mergence of  the  individual  in  the  group,  an  intense 
gregariousness  that  will  tolerate  no  individualism 
of  thought  or  ideal,  the  determination  to  secure  the 
victory  of  our  group  over  rival  groups,  are  among 
the  instinctive  foundations  not  only  of  the  ancient 
tribe  but  of  feudalism  —  and  of  the  modern  Ger- 
man state.  It  is  not  a  mere  political  accident  that  the 
introduction  of  those  "  revolutionary  "  measures  of 
wartime  England  have  synchronized  with  the  acces- 
sion to  power  of  the  most  reactionary  and  conserva- 
tive type  of  statesman  —  the  Milners,  Curzons,  Car- 
sons. 

The  result  of  applying  the  tribal  conception  to  a 
world  of  closely  knit  nations  is  shown  by  the  pres- 
ent condition  of  Europe.     It  needs  revision.     But 

[250] 


every  attempt  at  revision  will  encounter  somewhere 
the  primitive  tribal  instinct  or  passion.  All  revision 
of  conception,  in  any  field  in  the  past,  has  been  the 
work  of  small  minorities,  of  individual  minds:  a  few 
heretics,  encyclopedists  or  pamphleteers  able  to  reach 
other  minds  for  a  sufficient  length  of  time  to  break 
down  the  first  prejudice.  But  that  influence  of  the 
individual  mind  maintaining  a  heresy,  the  modern 
press,  by  virtue  of  the  psychological  Gresham  law 
acting  in  the  particular  economic  and  industrial  con- 
ditions of  our  time  I  have  indicated,  tends  to  destroy. 
If  the  feudalisms,  autocracies,  dynasties,  and  inqui- 
sitions of  the  past  had  possessed  the  modern  me- 
chanical press  operating  in  closely  packed  populations 
whose  industrial  occupations  demanded  most  of  their 
mental  energy,  that  control  of  the  mind  by  which 
alone  the  old  tyrannies  were  made  possible  (a  tiny 
governing  minority  did  not  impose  its  will  upon  the 
vast  majority  by  virtue  of  superior  physical  force) 
would  have  been  maintained  for  all  time.  The 
modern  press  is  likely  to  make  our  conceptions  of 
the  state,  nationalism,  individual  right,  international 
obligation  and  institutions  that  depend  thereon  all 
but  impossible  of  reform. 

The  forces  I  am  indicating  are  not  merely  con- 
cerned with  the  mechanical  control  of  ideas.  They 
determine  the  national  temperament.  The  constant 
stimulus  to  passion  and  the  herd  instinct  which  the 
necessity  of  finding  an  appeal  that  shall  be  wider 
and  more  successful  than  that  of  a  rival  newspaper 
concern,  the  consequent  violent-mindedness  of  the 
public,  the  impossibility  for  an  unpopular  view  to 

[251] 


obtain  adequate  expression,  all  end  by  destroying 
the  capacity  of  weighing  a  contrary  opinion  by  which 
alone  thought  on  public  issues  is  possible.  The 
process  by  which  the  governmental  changes  of  the 
last  two  years  have  been  brought  about  in  England 
can  only  be  described  as  moral  lynchings.  In  19 15 
the  public  man  who  criticized  Sir  Edward  Grey  could 
count  upon  being  driven  from  public  life;  in  19 16 
those  who  supported  him  were  so  driven.  The  pa- 
triot of  January  becomes  the  pro-German  of  June. 
Diametrically  contrary  opinions  are  advocated  within 
six  months  of  one  another  with  the  same  violence, 
and  the  short-memoried  public,  Impulsive,  unreflec- 
tive,  follows  the  hue  and  cry  in  both  cases.  The 
conditions  of  the  past  which  produced  a  political 
Englishman  who  was  impervious  to  public  clamour, 
stubborn  in  the  maintenance  of  his  individual  opin- 
ion, yet  tolerant  of  opposed  views,  have  disappeared. 
Every  one  now  seems  to  go  in  positive  terror  of  the 
"  lynch  press."  I  heard  only  the  other  day  of  a 
highly  placed  officer  who  was  withdrawn  the  day  his 
command  went  into  important  action  because  the  au- 
thorities feared  that  his  German-sounding  name 
would  provoke  attack  by  the  "  anti-Hun  "  papers  If 
the  operation  failed !  The  effect  of  his  sudden  with- 
drawal was  gross  confusion  and  muddle. 

At  the  present  moment  in  England  an  observer 
finds  this  extraordinary  situation :  the  private  ex- 
pression on  almost  every  hand  of  opinions  that  find 
no  public  expression  whatever.  Thus  "  public 
opinion  "  does  not  reflect  real  opinion.  I  have  be- 
fore me  as  I  write  letters  from  English  public  men 

[252] 


lamenting  the  unwisdom  of  England's  attitude  to- 
wards America  and  Mr.  Wilson's  policy  of  the  last 
few  months.^  "  But  we  must  wait  until  public  opin- 
ion is  more  favourable  before  taking  any  step." 
Yet  if  all  were  to  speak  their  private  opinion  the  pub- 
lic opinion  of  which  they  complain  would  be  a  vastly 
different  thing.  The  failure  to  make  this  needed 
moral  contribution  to  the  collective  mind  causes  that 
mind  to  be  shaped  by  its  worst  elements.  Those 
who  shirk  their  civic  duty  cannot  complain  if  they, 
too,  finally  are  the  victims  of  the  lynch  temper  which 
they  have  done  nothing  to  check. 

It  is  true  that  In  the  terms  of  the  problem,  as  I 
have  stated  it,  the  expression  of  momentarily  un- 
popular opinion  would  be  made  at  great  disadvan- 
tage; but  the  balance  would  turn  in  favour  of  sanity 
if  all  did  their  civic  duty  in  this  respect,  "  The  ul- 
timate foundation  of  every  state,"  says  Seeley,  "  is 
a  way  of  thinking."  And  though  I  am  offering  no 
solution  to  this  problem,  it  Is  certain  that  any  solu- 
tion must  include  this  moral  contribution  of  each 
man's  unpopular  opinion.  If  that  is  shirked,  the 
way  of  thinking  upon  which  in  the  last  resort  we 
must  depend  will  be  a  disastrous  way. 

II 

DE    H^RETICO    COMBURENDO :   OR,    "  THIS   IS   NOT 
THE  TIME  " 

A  recent  reference  by  a  modern  heretic  to  "  the 
famous  and  amiable  "  Statute  2,  Hen,  IV,  Cap,  15, 

^It  will  be  remembered  that  in  1916  much  of  the  English  press 
was  hostile  to  Mr.  Wilson,  and  to  his  proposed  League  of  Nations. 

[253] 


brought  rather  vividly  to  my  mind  two  facts  In  con- 
nection with  it:  the  excellence  of  its  intention  and 
the  obvious  ineffectiveness  of  its  methods  compared 
with  those  now  employed  against  the  particular  her- 
etics of  our  age. 

For,  of  course,  the  conception  that  underlay  the 
old  statute,  as  Mr.  G.  M.  Trevelyan  has  pointed  out, 
was  that  unless  every  one  was  compelled  to  believe 
the  prevailing  religious  doctrine  of  the  particular 
community  in  which  he  lived,  or,  failing  his  capacity 
to  believe  it,  at  least  to  conceal  his  thoughts  about 
it,  the  underpinning  of  all  morality  would  be  gone, 
there  would  be  no  final  sanction,  men  would  give  free 
rein  to  their  passions,  society  would  go  to  pieces,  and 
humanity  be  dissolved  into  the  animal  chaos  from 
which  it  had  arisen.  And  so  the  representatives  of 
law  and  order  under  the  powers  granted  them  by 
the  Defence  of  the  Realm  and  Society  Act  of  their 
time  took  poor  William  Sawtrey  (the  first  victim 
of  Statute  2,  Hen.  IV,  Cap.  15)  and  carefully  grilled 
him  alive  over  the  hot  coals  and  kept  him  sizzling 
till  the  market-place,  crowded  with  those  who  had 
come  to  see  the  spectacle,  smelt  like  a  busy  restaur- 
ant on  a  hot  day;  and  all  because  he  did  aver  "  that 
after  consecration  by  the  priest  there  remaineth  true 
bread." 

Now,  whether  the  safety  of  society  or  of  the  realm 
was  threatened  by  Sawtrey's  heresy  or  not,  the  meas- 
ure taken  to  protect  them  from  the  danger  thereof 
was  so  ineffectual  that  in  a  generation  or  two  the 
great  ones  of  our  l^nd  had  come  to  think  exactly  as 
William  Sawtrey  had  thought  and  were  busy  burn- 

I254] 


Ing  other  Sawtreys  for  refusing  to  affirm  the  very 
thing  which  the  earlier  Sawtrey  had  lost  his  life  de- 
fending. And  the  result  of  the  successive  burnings 
was  not  to  impress  mankind  with  the  importance  of 
the  point  for  which  the  rival  heretics  were  burned, 
but  to  render  them  on  the  whole  indifferent  to  both 
points  and  to  convince  them  that  neither  had  very 
much  to  do  with  real  religion. 

We,  under  our  new  statutes,  have  transferred  our 
heresy  hunting  to  another  field,  and  have  greatly 
improved  on  the  ineffective  methods  of  an  earlier 
time. 

You  may  now  have  what  opinion  you  like  upon  re- 
ligion, and  no  man  shall  hamper  the  freedom  of  its 
expression  by  the  written  or  spoken  word,  but  in 
certain  political  matters  yoyr  case  is  that  of  Sawtrey 
in  another  field.  You  may  doubt  St.  Paul  or  ques- 
tion the  philosophy  or  the  practicability  of  the 
theories  of  the  Founder  of  Christianity  (we  happen 
to  be  questioning  them  a  good  deal).  You  may 
differ  therefrom  all  you  like;  but  you  shall  not  differ 
from  Sir  Edward  Grey.^  You  may  even  as  a  Chris- 
tian Pastor  criticize  the  Testament  but  you  must  not 
criticize  the  White  Book.  If  you  treat  the  Secre- 
tary of  State  for  Foreign  Affairs  as  critically  as  you 
do  the  Founder  of  Christianity  and  subject  the  For- 
eign Office  dispatches  to  as  rigid  an  analysis  as  Mr. 
J.  M.  Robertson  has  subjected  the  Bible,  you  will, 
if  you  are  a  pastor,  lose  your  pastorate  (two  cases 

^  This  was  written  in  1914  when  it  was  fatal  for  a  public  man  to 
criticize  Sir  Edward  Grey.  Later  the  Northcliffe  Press  made  it 
fatal  to  support  him. 

[255] 


have  come  to  my  personal  knowledge),  if  a  grocer, 
your  trade;  if  a  newspaper,  your  circulation  and  your 
advertising. 

And  these  "  sanctions  "  are  so  much  more  effec- 
tive than  the  burning  alive.  "  Human  nature,  being 
what  it  is  "  (and  being  so  very  different  from  what 
those  who  appeal  most  frequently  to  it  would  have 
us  believe),  a  man  would  so  much  rather  lose  his 
life  than  his  livelihood;  so  much  rather  be  burned 
alive  for  his  opinions  than  held  in  contempt  by  old 
friends  for  them;  finds  it  so  much  easier  to  make 
one  momentary  and  dramatic  sacrifice  than  to  go 
on  making  day  by  day  the  small  unnoticed  sacri- 
fices: the  pressure  of  debt  and  the  reproaches  of 
family  or  business  associates.  The  matter  does  not 
admit  of  any  doubt  or  discussion.  Every  single  day 
since  August  has  furnished  numberless  proofs 
of  this  fact  in  human  nature.  The  soldiers  who 
make  up,  say,  the  German  army  are  not  morally 
superior  men;  they  are,  of  course,  morally  very  in- 
ferior to  the  troops  of  the  Allies  (even,  of  course, 
to  Senegalese  Negroes,  Turcos,  or  Cossacks)  ;  in 
their  civil  lives  they  show  presumably  all  the  usual 
servility  of  the  German  civilian;  shape  their  opin- 
ions carefully  to  the  needs  of  their  careers  as  petty 
bureaucrats  or  employes;  show  themselves  generally 
capable  of  all  the  small  meannesses  that  character- 
ize that  unpleasant  animal.  Yet  by  the  testimony 
of  their  enemies  they  die  without  flinching;  in  hordes, 
in  sickening  waves  ("  the  thousands  that  our  guns 
tore  to  ribbons  did  not  check  in  the  slightest  degree 
the  onrush  of  the  men  behind,"  reads  one  typical 

[256] 


account).  And  the  deml-gods  of  the  valiant  French 
army  are,  when  at  home,  the  men  we  read  about  in 
the  pages  of  CourteHne,  Lavedan,  or  Zola.  When 
armies  embrace  the  whole  manhood  of  a  nation  they 
are  necessarily  composed  of  the  "average  man"; 
and  though,  as  we  have  seen,  the  average  man  can 
go  to  his  death  with  a  laugh,  the  same  man  will  sell 
his  conscience  for  an  extra  pound  a  week.  If  Jones 
the  floor  walker  or  Smith  the  partner  of  the  East- 
hampton  Emporium  is  called  upon  by  public  procla- 
mation of  the  Courts  to  make  public  recantation  of  his 
political  creed  or  be  shot,  and  the  whole  town  waits 
in  dramatic  expectation  for  his  decision,  without  any 
sort  of  doubt  either  Smith  or  Jones  would  elect  to  be 
shot  and  would  go  to  his  death  without  a  tremor. 
But  if  Jones  gets  a  hint  that  his  political  disagree- 
ment with  an  important  customer  has  lost  custom 
to  the  firm  and  is  notified  that  he  must  not  mix 
politics  with  his  business;  if  Smith  the  partner  is 
shown  that  his  presidency  of  the  local  Peace  Society 
is  making  the  firm  unpopular  with  the  retired  colonels 
who  constitute  its  chief  clientele;  and  Smith's  partner 
—  who  does  not  share  Smith's  views  —  puts  it  to 
Smith,  whether  one  partner  has  any  right  to  ruin 
the  other  on  behalf  of  the  first's  political  opinions 
(which  are  not  shared  by  the  second)  ;  if  Robin- 
son the  manager  of  the  local  paper  is  told  that  he 
had  no  right  to  take  the  shareholders'  money  if  he 
intended  to  make  their  property  valueless  by  the 
advocacy  of  unpopular  views;  why,  then  the  men 
who  in  the  other  circumstances  would  so  readily  have 
died  are  likely  to  waver.     They  are  not  quite  sure 

[257] 


what  is  right;  they  would  sacrifice  themselves — ■ 
have  they  a  right  to  sacrifice  others?  And  so  they 
keep  their  views  to  themselves.  I  put  the  matter 
at  its  best,  assuming  that  motives  of  simple  venality 
do  not  operate.  The  process  may  even  act  more 
impersonally  still.  Robinson's  shareholders  may 
have  no  knowledge  even  of  the  politics  of  his  paper; 
the  shares  may  be  held  by  maiden  ladies  or  lawyers 
or  trustees  to  whom  they  are  just  sources  of  dividend. 
The  falling  off  in  revenue  is  simply  taken  as  proof  of 
incompetence;  Robinson  is  succeeded  by  a  manager 
determined  that  no  unpopular  politics  shall  interfere 
with  circulation  or  advertising.  A  heretic  has  been 
suppressed  —  the  weight  taken  from  one  side  of  the 
scale  of  opinion  and  put  into  the  other  —  simply  by 
impersonal  "  social  forces,"  a  kind  of  force  much 
more  effective  really  as  a  corrective  of  heresy  than 
the  pressure  of  the  thumbscrew. 

Thus  does  a  prejudice  once  started  gain  mo- 
mentum. It  is  not  checked  by  the  spectacle  of  any 
moving  or  human  valour  in  the  defence  of  contrary 
opinion;  it  eliminates  without  knowing  all  real  ex- 
pression of  the  other  side.  The  public  cannot  choose 
between  two  courses  because  it  has  become  impossi- 
ble for  two  courses  to  be  presented  to  it;  it  no  longer 
uses  its  mind  and  weighs  reasons  pro  and  con,  mak- 
ing a  free  choice;  it  is  carried  along  a  current  of  its 
own  creation,  as  much  a  beast  of  instinct  as  a  band 
of  stampeded  cattle,  each  of  which  is  rushing  in  a 
given  direction  —  perhaps  to  destruction  —  merely 
because  the  others  are. 

The  present  writer  happens  to  be  in  favour  oi 
[258] 


prosecuting  the  war;  to  have  been  all  his  thinking 
life  a  profoundly  convinced  anti-Prussian;  to  take 
the  view  that  English  influence  and  government  is 
very  much  better  than  Prussian  influence  and  govern- 
ment; to  beheve  that  in  July  last  Sir  Edward  Grey 
did  his  very  utmost  to  avert  war;  that  the  enemy 
should  be  defeated  and  Prussian  militarism  destroyed 
—  and  just  as  profoundly  that  none  of  these  things 
will  avail  much  if  the  new  statute  De  Haeretico  Com- 
burendo,  which  the  nation  has  imposed  upon  itself, 
continues  efi^ectively  to  stop  any  real  discussion  of 
the  diflicult  questions  which  will  arise  as  part  of  the 
problem  of  defeating  the  Prussian  and  rendering 
the  English  ideal  of  life  and  politics  triumphant  as 
against  the  Prussian  ideal. 

The  self-imposed  statute  is  doing  two  things ;  first, 
rendering  us  incapable  of  developing  a  public  opinion 
which  shall  know  what  it  wants  at  the  peace,  and 
how  it  proposes  to  get  it;  second,  it  is  nullifying  the 
moral  object  of  the  war  by  destroying  in  England 
the  ideal  it  set  out  to  protect  and  creating  in  England 
the  ideal  it  set  out  to  destroy. 

We  started  upon  the  war  fully  persuaded  that  its 
object  was  to  put  an  end  to  militarism  in  Europe,  to 
build  up  a  system  of  European  governments  based 
upon  the  co-operation  of  the  governed,  to  establish  a 
society  of  nations  rooted  in  real  law.  Any  one  who 
cares  to  watch  the  development  of  opinion  during 
six  months  will  see  that  day  by  day  this  ideal  has 
been  steadily  undermined;  writers  and  public  men 
who  first  advocated  it  we  now  find  expressing  the 
purest  Prussianism;  we  find  English  scientists  adopt- 

[259] 


Ing  without  protest  the  view  that  peace  Is  not  merely 
a  dream,  but  an  evil  dream  —  a  view  which  when 
expressed  by  Germans  we  take  as  demonstration  of 
the  need  of  destroying  them.  We  shall  not  stand 
for  a  better  society  at  the  peace  for  the  simple  rea- 
son that  we  have  gradually  undermined  our  "  Will 
to  Peace  " ;  we  have  persuaded  ourselves  of  its  im- 
possibility, and  we  shall  consequently  make  no  effort 
to  establish  it. 

The  cause  for  this  change  of  spirit  is  not  far  to 
seek.  Shortly  after  the  war  began  we  laid  it  down 
that  "  this  was  not  the  time  "  to  discuss  peace. 
There  was  to  be  a  truce.  But  the  "  truce  "  meant 
that  the  pacifist  should  be  silent  and  the  militarist 
should  go  on  urging  his  view;  there  was  no  truce 
on  the  part  of  the  Horatio  Bottomleys,  the  Maxses, 
the  Blatchfords.  They  were  continuing  to  indoctrin- 
ate the  public  as  lustily  as  ever.  The  truce  meant 
that  no  one  should  be  allowed  to  reply  to  them.  A 
curious  instance  happened  to  come  to  my  knowledge. 
A  Liberal  having  proclaimed  to  the  extent  of  two 
columns  in  a  Liberal  paper  of  a  heretofore  pacifist 
type  that  war  was  in  the  nature  of  things  and  in- 
evitable, a  friend  of  mine  wrote  an  article  in  reply 
thereto.  He  promptly  received  a  note  from  the  ed- 
itor to  the  effect  that  though  he  agreed  with  the 
tenor  of  the  second  article  he  did  not  think  that  "  this 
was  the  time  to  discuss  the  ethics  of  war."  (Pre- 
sumably a  long  article  urging  that  war  was  inevitable, 
and  in  the  nature  of  man,  was  not  by  way  of  discus- 
sion of  the  ethics  of  war.)      And  so  for  six  months, 

[260] 


day  by  day,  in  Liberal  and  reactionary  papers  alike 
the  public  has  heard  one  side  only. 

No  one,  not  even  men  of  strong  intellect  thor- 
oughly well  grounded  in  the  contrary  views,  can  day 
by  day  be  exposed  to  this  process  without  being  un- 
consciously led  to  forget  many  things  which  he  would 
not  forget  if  occasionally  reminded  by  impartial  dis- 
cussion. And  what  is  true  of  our  general  attitude 
towards  peace  as  a  whole  is  true  of  the  more  de- 
tailed problems  of  the  settlement.  We  all  know 
perfectly  well  that  there  are  very  difficult  questions 
that  will  demand  much  discussion  and  will  commit 
us  one  way  or  another  to  far-reaching  principles 
greatly  affecting  our  future  policies. 

In  the  end  our  destinies  in  these  matters  will  be 
settled  by  a  dozen  diplomats  acting  in  secret;  the 
future  of  millions,  the  issues  of  civilization  for  a 
generation  or  two,  will  be  settled  over  the  heads 
of  those  concerned  as  much  as  though  they  were 
cattle  upon  a  farm.  Or  by  a  wave  of  popular 
feeling,  provoked  fortuitously  by  some  momenta- 
rily dramatic  incident.  In  neither  case  are  the  peo- 
ples masters  of  their  fate;  in  both  self-government 
is  reduced  to  a  sham. 

Under  the  old  statute  lay  the  view  that  the  common 
people,  because  of  their  lack  of  understanding,  should 
not  concern  themselves  with  theology;  under  the  new 
statute  the  common  people  must  not  concern  them- 
selves with  their  politics.  And  yet  the  common  and 
"  uninstructed  "  man  of  today  has  saner  and  clearer 
and  truer  notions  concerning  his  theology  than  had 

[261] 


the  typically  learned  theologian  of  the  older  time, 
and  far  more  of  true  religious  feeling. 

The  old  assumption  was  that  you  could  not  believe 
your  religion  if  you  discussed  it,  nor  be  loyal  to  your 
church  if  you  took  any  step  to  protect  it  from  error. 
The  new  assumption  is  that  you  cannot  believe  in  your 
country's  cause  if  you  discuss  it,  nor  protect  your 
State  if  you  attempt  to  understand  its  policy.  We 
are  told  if  we  run  the  foreign  affairs  of  our  country 
as  we  run  its  other  affairs  normally,  by  public  discus- 
sion, we  shall  make  an  end  to  the  success  which  has 
marked  the  secret  management  of  foreign  affairs 
by  experts  in  the  past.  Well,  if  the  outcome  that  we 
are  now  witnessing,  is  the  efficiency  that  marks  se- 
crecy and  the  expert,  there  are  some  of  us  who  feel 
half  disposed  to  risk  the  inefficiency  of  the  common 
man.  In  any  case,  even  if  the  management  of  for- 
eign affairs  by  the  methods  of  our  home  politics  does 
produce  the  same  result  as  at  present,  we  shall  at 
least  go  to  the  slaughter  with  our  eyes  open  and 
having  had  some  part  in  choosing  our  fate.  As  it 
is  we  have  had  no  choice.  It  may  be  the  "  efficient  " 
way;  but  it  does  not  happen  to  leave  us  free  men. 


[262] 


CHAPTER  III 

WHY   FREEDOM   MATTERS 

Our  age  long  failures  to  grasp  the  real  justification  of 
freedom:  Society's  need.  The  self-same  debate  in  Athens 
two  thousand  five  hundred  years  ago.  The  oppressions  from 
which  the  mass  have  suffered  have  always  been  imposed  by 
themselves.  The  idea  that  a  tiny  minority,  by  means  of 
physical  force,  can  impose  tyranny  upon  the  mass,  is  ob- 
viously an  illusion.  That  tyranny  must  be  imposed  by  cap- 
turing the  mind  of  the  mass.  The  quality  of  any  Society 
depends  upon  the  ideas  of  the  individuals  who  compose  it, 
and  those  ideas  upon  Freedom  and  independence  of  judg- 
ment.    The  Political  Heretic  as  the  Saviour  of  Society. 

The  strength  of  this  instinctive  hatred  of  heresy 
seems  to  stand  permanently  in  the  way  of  our  realiza- 
tion of  those  facts  connected  with  the  working  of  the 
human  intelligence  which  make  freedom  of  discussion 
a  social  need.  It  is  twenty-five  hundred  years  since 
Socrates  based  the  defence  of  free  discussion  upon 
its  real  ground  in  terms  that  are  as  true  and  vital, — 
and  as  ignored  —  today  as  they  were  in  his  day. 

In  the  press  discussions  of  this  matter  both  here 
and  in  Europe  the  problem  is  envisaged  mainly  as 
one  of  minority  right.  Protest  against  repression, 
so  far  as  it  is  made  at  all,  is  made  on  behalf  of  the 
"  right  "  to  free  speech.     The  implication  is  that  the 

[263] 


State  should  be  prepared  to  take  some  risk  in  order 
to  preserve  a  freedom  so  hardly  won. 

Such  a  claim  places  the  matter  upon  a  wholly  mis- 
leading and  unsound  foundation.  If  it  were  true  that 
respect  for  freedom  of  speech  could  invoke  no  greater 
reason  than  the  right  of  individuals  to  enjoy  intel- 
lectual exercise  unhampered  by  the  needs  of  the  com- 
munity for  common  action,  such  a  right  should  not 
survive  a  state  of  war  for  a  single  day.  But  the  real 
reason  for  preserving  minority  criticism  is  the  need 
for  it  on  the  part  of  the  community  —  of  the  major- 
ity —  as  much  in  war  time  as  in  peace.  Indeed  the 
need  is  greater  in  war  time.  For  without  minority 
criticism  the  majority  is  bound,  sooner  or  later,  to 
go  wrong,  to  show  defective  judgment,  to  adopt  and 
execute  disastrous  policies;  and  that  even  more  cer- 
tainly in  war  than  In  peace. 

And  it  is  a  significant  reflection  upon  the  extent  of 
any  real  understanding  of  the  principle  of  democracy 
that  this  one  reason,  recognized  by  every  mind  from 
Socrates  to  Milton,  and  from  Milton  to  Mill  and 
Mill  to  Bertrand  Russell,  or  John  Dewey,  that  has 
wrestled  with  the  problem  of  freedom  as  overriding 
all  others  in  importance,  is  the  reason  practically 
never  invoked  by  either  party  to  the  popular  discus- 
sion. The  matter  is  almost  always  regarded  as  a 
conflict  of  rights  between  the  majority  and  the  mi- 
nority, or  as  between  the  Individual  and  society.  At 
best  we  "  tolerate  "  contrary  opinion  —  the  very 
word  excluding  the  idea  that  such  is  necessary  to  the 
common  welfare,  and  should  be  scrupulously  pre- 
served to  that  end. 

[264] 


If  we  could  imagine  a  modern  heretic  —  a  Bernard 
Shaw  or  a  Bertrand  Russell  —  put  on  trial  for  his 
heresies,  would  he  not  (especially  Shaw)  state  his 
defence  in  just  about  the  terms  that  Socrates  made 
his: 

"  I  do  beg  of  you  not  to  interrupt  me,  but  hear  me ;  there 
was  an  understanding  between  us  that  you  should  hear  me 
to  the  end.  1  have  something  to  say,  at  which  you  may  be 
inclined  to  cry  out ;  but  I  believe  that  to  hear  me  will  be  good 
for  you,  and  therefore  I  beg  that  you  will  not  cry  out.  I 
would  have  you  know  that  if  you  kill  such  an  one  as  I  am, 
you  will  injure  yourselves  more  than  you  will  injure  me. 

"  I  am  not  going  to  argue  for  my  own  sake,  as  you  may 
think,  but  for  yours,  that  you  may  not  sin  against  God  by 
condemning  me,  who  am  his  gift  to  you.  For  if  you  kill  me 
you  will  not  easily  find  a  successor  to  me,  who,  if  I  may  use 
such  a  ludicrous  figure  of  speech,  am  a  sort  of  gadfly,  given 
to  the  state  by  God ;  and  the  state  is  a  great  and  noble 
steed  who  is  tardy  in  his  motions  owing  to  his  very  size,  and 
requires  to  be  stirred  into  life.  I  am  that  gadfly  which  God 
has  attached  to  the  state,  and  all  day  and  in  all  places  am 
always  fastening  upon  you,  arousing  and  persuading  and  re- 
proaching you.  You  will  not  easily  find  another  like  me, 
and  therefore  I  would  advise  you  to  spare  me.  I  dare  say 
that  you  may  feel  out  of  temper  (like  a  person  who  is  sud- 
denly awakened  from  sleep),  and  you  think  that  you  might 
easily  strike  me  dead  as  Anytus  advises,  and  then  you  would 
sleep  on  for  the  remainder  of  your  lives;  unless  God  in  his 
care  of  you  sent  you  another  gadfly." 

And  Socrates  tells  us  of  the  impossibility  of  an 
honest  independence  of  mind  In  the  public  life  of  the 
Athenian  democracy : 

"  Some  one  may  wonder  why  I  go  about  in  private  giving 
advice  and  busying  myself  with  the  concerns  of  others,  but 

[265J 


do  not  venture  to  come  forward  in  public  and  advise  the 
state.  I  will  tell  you  why.  I  am  certain,  O  men  of  Athens, 
that  if  I  had  engaged  in  politics,  I  should  have  perished  long 
ago,  and  done  no  good  either  to  you  or  to  myself.  And  do 
not  be  offended  at  my  telling  you  the  truth :  for  the  truth  is, 
that  no  man  who  goes  to  war  with  you  or  any  other  multi- 
tude, honestly  striving  against  the  many  lawless  and  unright- 
eous deeds  which  are  done  in  a  state,  will  save  his  life;  he 
who  will  fight  for  the  right,  if  he  would  live  even  for  a  brief 
space,  must  have  a  private  station  and  not  a  public  one."  ^ 

Can  we  write  very  differently  of  our  time?  Are 
we  any  nearer  to  understanding  what  should  really 
be  done  with  the  heretic,  the  man  of  independent 
mind  and  judgment!  Athens  proposed  to  kill  that 
particular  heretic.  What  other  fate  did  he  deserve? 
Socrates  answers : 

"  And  so  ne  proposes  death  as  the  penalty.  And  what 
shall  I  propose  on  my  part,  O  men  of  Athens?  Clearly  that 
which  is  my  due.  And  what  is  my  due?  What 
return  shall  be  made  to  the  man  who  has  never  had 
the  wit  to  be  idle  during  his  whole  life;  but  has  been 
careless  of  what  the  many  care  for  —  wealth,  and 
family  interests,  and  military  offices,  and  speaking  in  the 
assembly,  and  magistracies,  and  plots,  and  parties.  Reflect- 
ing that  I  was  really  too  honest  a  man  to  be  a  politician  and 
live,  I  did  not  go  where  I  could  do  no  good  to  you  or  to 
myself;  but  where  I  could  do  the  greatest  good  privately  to 
every  one  of  you,  thither  I  went,  and  sought  to  persuade 
every  man  among  you.  What  shall  be  done  to  such  an  one  ? 
Doubtless  some  good  thing,  O  men  of  Athens,  if  he  has  his 
reward;  and  the  good  should  be  of  a  kind  suitable  to  him. 
What  would  be  a  reward  suitable  to  a  poor  man  who  is  your 
benefactor,  and  who  desires  leisure  that  he  may  instruct  you  ? 

^I  have  taken  Jowett's  translation  word  for  word.  ("The  Four 
Socratic  Dialogues  of  Plato.") 

[266] 


There  can  be  no  reward  so  fitting  as  maintenance  in  the 
Prytaneum,  O  men  of  Athens,  a  reward  which  he  deserves 
far  more  than  the  citizen  who  has  won  the  prize  at  Olympia 
in  the  horse  or  chariot  race,  whether  the  chariots  were  drawn 
by  two  horses  or  by  many.  For  1  am  in  want,  and  he  has 
enough;  and  he  only  gives  you  the  appearance  of  happiness, 
and  I  give  you  the  reality.  And  if  I  am  to  estimate  the 
penalty  fairly,  I  should  say  that  maintenance  in  the  Prj'tan- 
eum  is  the  just  return." 

A  very  Shavian  discourse.  Of  course  Athens  killed 
him.  And  our  democracies  two  thousand  years  or 
more  later  have  not  begun  to  get  his  point. 

Usually  when  we  speak  of  the  past  struggles  of  the 
people  against  tyranny,  we  have  in  our  minds  a  pic- 
ture of  the  great  mass  held  down  by  the  superior 
physical  force  of  the  tyrant.  But  such  a  picture  is, 
of  course,  quite  absurd.  For  the  physical  force 
which  held  down  the  people  was  that  which  they 
themselves  supplied.  The  tyrant  had  no  physical 
force  save  that  which  his  victims  furnished  him.  In 
this  struggle  of  "  People  vs.  Tyrant,"  obviously  the 
weight  of  physical  force  was  on  the  side  of  the  peo- 
ple. This  was  as  true  of  the  slave  States  of  antiquity 
as  It  Is  of  the  modern  autocracies.  Obviously  the 
free  minority  —  the  five  or  ten  or  fifteen  per  cent. — 
of  Rome  or  Egypt;  or  the  governing  orders  of 
Prussia  or  Russia,  did  not  impose  their  will  upon  the 
remaining  ninety-five  or  eighty-five  per  cent,  by  vir- 
tue of  superior  physical  force,  the  sheer  weight  of 
numbers,  of  sinew  and  muscle.  If  the  tyranny  of 
the  minority  had  depended  upon  Its  own  physical 
power,  It  could  not  have  lasted  a  day.     The  physical 

[267] 


force  which  the  minority  used  was  the  physical  force 
of  the  majority.  The  people  were  oppressed  by  an 
instrument  which  they  themselves  furnished. 

In  that  picture,  therefore,  which  we  make  of  the 
mass  of  mankind  struggling  against  the  "  force  "  of 
tyranny,  we  must  remember  that  the  force  against 
which  they  struggled  was  not  in  the  last  analysis 
physical  force  at  all;  they  themselves  furnished  the 
instrument  which  was  used  against  them.  It  was 
their  own  weight  from  which  they  desired  to  be 
liberated. 

Do  we  realize  all  that  this  means?  It  means  that 
tyranny  has  been  imposed,  as  freedom  has  been  won: 
through  the  Mind. 

The  small  minority  imposes  itself  and  can  only 
impose  itself  by  getting  first  at  the  mind  of  the  ma- 
jority—  the  people  —  in  one  form  or  another:  by 
controlling  it  through  keeping  knowledge  from  it,  as 
in  so  much  of  antiquity,  or  by  controlling  the  knowl- 
edge itself,  as  in  Germany.  It  is  because  the  minds 
of  the  mass  have  failed  them,  that  they  have  been 
enslaved.  Without  that  intellectual  failure  of  the 
mass,  tyranny  could  have  found  no  force  wherewith 
to  impose  its  burdens.  To  say  that  "  freedom  rests 
upon  the  sword  "  is  not  merely  not  the  whole  truth ; 
it  is  very  nearly  the  inversion  of  the  truth,  for  it 
would  be  truer  to  say  that  if  all  men  had  refused  to 
fight  there  could  have  been  no  tyranny  because 
tyranny  could  have  found  no  physical  instrument. 
Physical  force  does  not  act  of  itself  but  only  as  the 
human  will  behind  it  may  direct,  and  whether  that 
force  —  the  sword  —  is  to  be  an  instrument  of  sui- 

[268] 


clde  or  salvation,  depends,  not  upon  the  sword  Itself, 
which,  for  all  our  romanticizing  is  dead  metal,  but 
upon  the  human  mind  that  wills  its  use. 

If  that  is  broadly  true,  it  makes  the  problem  of 
preserving  freedom  very  different  from  what  we  cur- 
rently conceive  it  to  be.  One  hears  commonly  the 
expression  "  There  is  no  fear  that  this,  that  or  the 
other  measure  —  of  militarism,  state  control  of  opin- 
ion, censorship  or  what  not  —  will  ever  be  perma- 
nent because  the  people  here  have  control  and  they 
will  never  tolerate  it."  But  tyrannies  do  not  come 
because  people  have  lost  the  power  to  resist  them; 
they  come  because  they  have  lost  the  desire  so  to  do. 
The  problem  of  freedom  is  at  bottom  the  problem  of 
preserving  the  desire  for  freedom;  preserving  the 
capacity  to  know  what  it  is  even,  to  "  know  it  when 
we  see  it."  Millions  of  men  of  pure  German  blood 
are  opposed  to  the  German  system.  (The  casualty 
lists  of  the  American  army  reeks  with  German 
names.)  Their  environment,  upbringing,  the  ideas 
they  have  absorbed,  have  brought  them  to  hate 
the  German  system.  Had  they  been  subject  to  the 
environment  of  Prussia  —  been  brought  up  in  their 
fatherland  in  other  words  —  they  would  have  died 
for  it  as  readily  as  do  their  relatives. 

When,  as  we  are  just  now  learning  to  do,  we  at- 
tempt to  read  history,  not  as  the  story  of  the  rise  and 
fall  of  Empires  and  States  and  Dynasties,  but  as  a 
picture  of  the  lives  of  the  common  folk,  the  anony- 
mous millions,  we  are  astonished  how  little  difference 
all  the  external  changes  for  which  men  bled  so  lav- 
ishly, seemed  to  make  in  the  lives  of  those  common 

[269] 


folk.  For  them  indeed  it  was  true  that  the  more  It 
changed  the  more  It  was  the  same  thing.  It  requires 
a  real  effort  to  realize,  in  our  wonder  and  delight  in 
the  pictures  that  have  been  drawn  for  us  of  brilliant 
Asiatic,  Roman  and  Greek  civilizations,  that  they 
were  all  based  upon  the  slavery  of  the  greater  part  of 
the  populations;  that  vast  masses  of  human  beings 
who  lived  during  those  thousands  of  years  were  the 
mere  chattels  of  a  tiny  minority.  But  when  we  make 
that  effort  and  take  a  long  view  we  see  history  as  the 
picture  of  the  never-ending  slaughter  of  one  set  of 
these  human  chattels  by  another  set;  or,  if  not  thrown 
at  one  another  as  groups  of  human  chattels,  flying  at 
one  another  as  puppets  of  vague  hates,  as  in  the  wars 
of  religion  and  in  the  religious  persecutions,  or  in  the 
wars  of  the  nationalities  like  those  of  the  Balkans: 
one  race  or  tongue  blindly  throwing  itself  at  a  differ- 
ent race  or  tongue  merely  because  it  was  different, 
because,  as  Mr.  Bertrand  Russell  says,  like  dogs 
"  something  angers  them  In  each  other's  smell  " ; 
and  when  that  welter  disappears  In  some  degree  in 
the  western  world,  we  find  it  succeeded  by  all  the 
sordid  meannesses  of  the  Industrial  revolution,  as  in 
our  own  land. 

A  student  of  Italian  peasant  life,  both  in  the  past 
and  in  the  present,  has  questioned  whether  In  the  four 
thousand  years  more  or  less  of  which  we  have  some 
record  of  life  in  the  Apennine  Hills,  the  lot  of  the 
peasant  has  Improved  at  all;  whether  "progress" 
and  invention  and  political  changes  have  in  fact  done 
anything  whatsoever,  either  spiritually  or  materially, 
for  the  majority  of  the  population  living  in  those 

[270] 


provinces ;  whether  the  goat-herds  and  shepherds  two 
thousand  years  before  Christ  —  they  and  the  women 
they  loved  and  the  children  these  bore  (the  few  relics 
they  left  enable  us  to  judge  with  some  degree  of 
certainty  of  the  character  of  the  life  they  led) —  did 
not  live  as  freely  and  as  fully  as  the  peasants  living 
there  today.  If  he  had  gone  to  the  countries  of  the 
Old  Testament,  he  might  have  pushed  his  comparison 
over  even  a  longer  period.  He  points  out  that  less 
to  eat  they  could  hardly  have  had,  for  if  those  today 
had  less  they  would  starve;  more  toil  they  could 
hardly  have  had,  for  those  of  today  toil  almost  to  the 
limit  of  human  endurance.  Those  of  the  past  were 
not  free,  but  neither  are  those  of  today.  The  servi- 
tude of  the  ancients  did  not  bear  more  hardly  upon 
them  probably,  than  the  economic  and  military  servi- 
tude does  upon  those  of  today.  The  burden  of  debt, 
taxation,  of  a  military  machine  that  may  at  any  mo- 
ment call  for  them  to  sacrifice  their  lives  in  some  cause 
which  they  do  not  understand,  or  may  not  approve, 
certainly  does  not  leave  them  free  men. 

And  does  that  apply  only  to  the  Italian  hills? 
Circumspice! 

We  have  struggled  during  these  untold  centuries 
for  bread  and  freedom.  With  this  result.  That 
the  great  majority  have  not  yet  enough  to  eat,  suffer 
from  insufficiency  or  overwork  in  one  form  or  an- 
other. And  our  principles  of  Government  have  been 
such  that  there  is  not  now,  in  theory  at  least,  and  very 
nearly  in  fact,  in  all  the  millions  of  Europe,  one  man 
physically  able  to  kill,  whose  life  and  conscience  be- 
longs to  himself.     From  Archangel  to  Bagdad,  from 

[271] 


Carnarvon  to  Vladivostok  there  is  not  one  to  whom 
an  impersonal  entity  known  as  THE  STATE  may 
not  suddenly  come  and  say,  "  You  shall  leave  your 
wife  and  children  and  the  tasks  to  which  you  have 
devoted  your  life,  immediately,  and  put  yourself 
obediently  at  my  orders.  The  task  which  I  assign 
to  you  is  to  kill  certain  men;  as  many  as  possible, 
whether  you  think  them  right  or  whether  you  think 
them  wrong.      Kill;  or  be  killed." 

These  millions  find  themselves  as  much  bereft  of 
freedom  as  were  the  slaves  of  antiquity.  With  this 
difference :  The  slavery  of  antiquity,  the  slavery  of 
biblical  times  for  instance,  made  you  a  slave  to  a  per- 
son, a  human  being,  to  whose  ordinary  human  senti- 
ments you  could  appeal.  But  in  the  modern  world 
you  may  at  any  moment  become  the  slave  of  an  ab- 
straction, a  machine. 

Just  think :  we  may  be  on  the  eve  of  the  discovery 
of  the  secret  of  the  release  of  atomic  energy.  Such 
a  discovery  would  multiply  overnight  the  wealth  of 
the  world  very  many  times.  If  man  knew  how  to  use 
such  a  discovery  he  could  liberate  himself  once  and 
for  ever  from  poverty  and  soul  destroying  toil.  But 
the  instrument  will  simply  use  him :  it  will  kill  him 
in  ever  increasing  numbers  if  our  present  ideas  in 
international  relationship,  our  present  attitude  in  cer- 
tain large  human  issues  continue,  if  we  continue  to 
believe  that  "  ordeal  by  battle  "  is  the  right  method 
of  settling  difference  between  peoples.  For  the 
atomic  bomb  will  bear  about  the  same  relation  to  the 
present  high  explosive  that  a  sixteen-inch  howitzer 
does  to  a  child's  toy  pistol.     And  as,  with  greatly 

[272] 


increased  mechanical  power,  the  women  could  per- 
fectly well  keep  the  men  and  youths  fed  and  clothed 
there  is  no  reason  why  —  given  the  continued  com- 
petition in  armaments  —  such  a  discovery  should  not 
result  in  the  whole  male  population  of  the  world  giv- 
ing themselves  permanently  during  periods  of  peace 
to  preparation  for  slaughter,  and  during  war  to  the 
accomphshment  of  slaughter. 

It  comes  then  to  this:  the  mind  of  man  in  the 
sphere  of  social  relations  has  so  failed,  that  a  dis- 
covery capable  of  giving  ample  wealth  to  the  very 
poorest,  of  abolishing  all  poverty  and  nine-tenths 
of  the  disease  of  the  world,  that  could  place  creation 
definitely  in  man's  power  —  that  discovery  would  be 
a  curse.  For  there  would  be  a  real  danger  that  man 
would  use  such  an  instrument  for  collective  suicide. 
Let  the  world  tomorrow,  during  this  war,  discover 
how  to  control  atomic  energy,  so  that  both  sides  could 
drop  on  the  hostile  cities,  bombs  like  those  described 
for  us  by  Mr.  Wells,  and  the  killing  would  be  multi- 
plied by  ten.  Europe,  in  sober  fact  and  not  rhetori- 
cal figure,  would  become  a  waste;  and  the  fantasy  of 
Samuel  Butler,  in  which  man  is  faced  by  extermina- 
tion by  his  own  machines,  would  become  true,  in  fact. 
And  if  today  it  is  not  actual  extermination  which 
faces  him,  it  is  a  dreadful  form  of  slavery  —  the 
consecration  of  his  life  to  fulfilling  the  bloody  behests 
of  these  soulless,  mechanical  monsters.  Indeed,  that 
slav^ery  is  already  here.  We  have  all  wanted  to  do 
one  thing;  we  have  all  done  another.  No  one  pre- 
tends that  the  common  people  of  Europe  —  not  even 
the    common   people    of   Germany  —  wanted   war, 

[273] 


wanted  to  be  dragged  from  their  fields  and  factories 
for  what  was  to  be  for  millions,  certain  death.  But 
though  everybody  hated  this  act,  everybody  com- 
mitted it.  Each  had  to  take  his  place  in  the  great 
machine  he  could  not  control ;  or  it  would  crush  him. 
Nobody  could  stop  it.     It  was  the  master. 

Man's  outstanding  failures  are  often  ascribed  to 
his  selfishness,  his  grasping  materialism,  his  lack  of 
readiness  to  give  himself  to  the  service  of  others. 
But  those  millions  of  lads  throwing  their  lives  away 
with  a  smile  —  and  they  include  the  German  lads, 
too  —  are  not  doing  it  from  selfishness.  They,  at 
least,  are  not  actuated  by  materialism.  Surely,  the 
marvellous  fact  which  stands  out  in  all  this  story  of 
man's  bloodshed,  his  submissions,  his  poverty,  is  the 
vast  unselfishness,  the  incalculable  heroism  and  sacri- 
fices that  it  reveals.  We  find  men,  generation  after 
generation,  giving  everything  that  they  possess  — 
the  well-being  of  their  lives,  their  places  as  bread- 
winners, as  guardians  and  protectors  of  their  families, 
and  family  life  itself  —  for  causes,  the  triumph  of 
which  could  not  only  not  benefit  them,  but  which  at- 
tached the  burdens  they  bore  still  more  firmly  to  them. 
It  is  not  from  any  insufficiency  of  the  impulse  to 
sacrifice  that  untold  generations  have  fought  and  died. 
It  is  from  want  of  knowing  how  to  combine  to  rule 
themselves  for  their  common  good;  from  failure 
of  the  social  Instinct  In  the  largest  sense  of  the 
term. 

Yet,  as  we  saw,  man  has  made  advances  at  points 
—  as  In  the  abandonment  of  religious  persecution. 
What  is  the  nature  of  the  "  social  sense  "  that  has 

[274] 


enabled  him  to  do  It,  that  has  given  him  some  capacity 
for  self  rule?  To  what  do  we  owe  our  emergence 
from  the  Europe  of  ecclesiastical  tyrannies  and  the 
religious  wars,  from  a  condition  of  society  which  ex- 
posed its  members  to  the  risks  of  the  Inquisition,  to 
torture  or  to  popular  massacre ;  in  which  the  heretic, 
the  man  of  unusual  theological  ideas,  was  a  thing  of 
horror  supposed  to  carry  with  him  an  intolerable 
bodily  odour?  The  change  in  feeling  in  this  matter 
is  widespread,  not  confined  to  just  a  few  thinkers 
on  a  special  subject;  it  applies  to  whole  populations. 
For  the  extraordinary  thing  is  not  so  much  that  men 
should  have  given  up  killing  one  another  on  account 
of  religious  differences,  but  that  they  —  the  great 
number  —  should  have  ceased  wanting  to;  not  so 
much  that  the  Inquisition  should  have  disappeared, 
but  that  the  personal  odour  which  attached  to  the 
heretic  should  be  no  longer  discernible. 

Lecky  has  pointed  out  that  the  motive  which  dom- 
inated European  politics  for  centuries,  which  over- 
weighed  all  others,  which  seemed  destined  to  con- 
demn western  civilization  to  never-ending  conflict, 
which  was  perhaps  the  very  greatest  difficulty  with 
which  statesmen  had  to  wrestle,  has  almost  disap- 
peared as  a  major  motive  in  statecraft.  What  then 
is  the  nature  of  this  change  of  mind,  of  attitude? 
What  has  brought  it  about? 

It  is  not  that  the  experts  in  Statecraft  are  more 
learned  or  acute  in  our  day  concerning  this  detail  of 
Government.  The  theological  and  political  experts 
who  defended  the  principle  that  the  State  should 
properly  have  authority  over  men's  beliefs  —  were 

[275] 


acuter  reasoners  and  had  greater  knowledge  of  most 
aspects  of  the  subject  with  which  they  dealt,  than  have 
those  perhaps  who  deal  with  it  today.  (In  the  same 
way  the  disappearance  from  our  life  of  the  slavery 
or  helotry  which  marked  Roman  life,  is  not  due  to 
the  superiority  of  the  modern  to  Roman  statesmen. 
Roman  political  literature  reveals  often  a  type  of 
ruler  as  able  and  understanding  as  ours  of  the  pres- 
ent day  —  to  put  it  at  its  very  lowest!) 

The  Europe  of  the  wars  of  religion  and  of  the 
Inquisition  was  not,  so  far  as  the  few  were  con- 
cerned, a  savage  Europe.  It  was  the  Europe  at  one 
point  of  Montaigne  and  Shakespeare.  Nor  was  the 
theory  upon  which  the  State  prosecuted  heresy  and 
which  led  one  group  to  fight  another  an  absurd  one. 
It  was  based  upon  an  argument  which  has  never  been 
fully  answered.^ 

1  Elsewhere  I  happen  to  have  written:  — 

"  Civilized  Governments  have  abandoned  their  claim  to  dictate 
the  belief  of  their  subjects.  For  very  long  that  was  a  right  tena- 
ciously held,  and  it  was  held  on  grounds  for  which  there  was  an 
immense  deal  to  be  said.  It  was  held  that,  as  belief  is  an  integral 
part  of  conduct,  and  that  as  conduct  springs  from  belief,  and  the 
purpose  of  the  State  is  to  ensure  such  conduct  as  will  enable  us  to 
go  about  our  business  in  safety,  it  was  obviously  the  duty  of  the 
State  to  protect  those  beliefs,  the  abandonment  of  which  seemed  to 
undermine  the  foundation  of  conduct.  I  do  not  believe  that  this 
case  has  ever  been  completeU'  answered.  A  great  many  believe  it 
today,  and  there  are  many  sections  of  the  European  population 
and  immensely  powerful  bodies  that  would  reassert  it  if  only  they 
had  the  opportunity.  Men  of  profound  thought  aiid  learning  today 
defend  it;  and  personally  I  have  found  it  very  difficult  to  make  a 
clear  and  simple  case  for  the  defence  of  the  principle  on  which 
every  civilized  Government  in  the  world  is  today  founded.  How 
do  you  account  for  this  —  that  a  principle  which  I  do  not  believe 
one  man  in  a  million  could  defend  from  weighty  objections  —  has 
become  the  dominating  rule  of  civilized  government  throughout  the 
world? 

"  Well,  that  once  universal  policy  has  been  abandoned,  not  be- 
cause all  arguments,  or  even  perhaps  most  of  the  arguments,  which 
led  to  it  have  been  answered,  but  because  the  fundamental  one  has. 

[276] 


Indeed,  we  know  that  the  minority  who  ruled  the 
Europe  of  the  religious  wars  were  sometimes  as  tol- 
erant —  and  as  sceptical  —  in  matters  of  religious 
opinion,  as  are  the  educated  of  today. 

It  was  the  feeling  and  attitude,  the  general  pubhc 
opinion,  which  made  the  wars  of  religion  (and  some- 
times made  it  impossible  for  the  ruling  few  to  pre- 
vent them)  and  sanctioned  these  persecutions,  as  an 
earlier  opinion,  which  included  often  the  opinion  of 
the  slaves,  sanctioned  slavery. 

Nor  can  we  assume  that  the  section  of  the  public 
which  made  public  opinion,  was  less  informed  in  the 
details  of  theology  than  is  our  own.  The  modern 
man  who  is  tolerant  of  hostile  religious  views,  where 
the  man  of  an  earlier  generation  would  have  been 
intolerant,  is  certainly  not  so  by  virtue  of  any  su- 
perior knowledge  of  the  special  issues  of  theological 
controversy,  of  the  texts.  Indeed,  expert  knowledge 
of  these  matters  today,  does  not,  as  a  rule,  imply 
toleration,  or  even  wisdom.  He  who  is  learned  in 
the  texts  is  generally  intolerant  of  those  who  draw 
conclusions  from  them  contrary  to  his  own. 

We  may  fairly  conclude  that  if  the  theological  ex- 
perts had  had  the  settlement  of  the  troubles  which 
arose  out  of  religious  differences,  and  which  did  in 

.  .  .  The  world  of  religious  wars  and  of  the  Inquisition  was  a 
world  which  had  a  very  definite  conception  of  the  relation  of  au- 
thority to  religious  belief  and  to  truth ;  as  that  truth  could  be,  and 
should  be,  protected  by  force.  .  .  .  What  broke  down  this  concep- 
tion was  a  growing  realization  that  authority,  force,  was  irrelevant 
to  the  issues  of  truth  (a  party  of  heretics  triumphed  by  virtue  of 
some  physical  accident,  as  that  they  occupied  a  mountain  region)  ; 
that  it  was  ineffective,  and  that  the  essence  of  truth  was  something 
outside  the  scope  of  physical  conflict.  As  the  realization  of  this 
grew,  the  conflicts  declined." — "The  Foundation  of  International 
Polity."     (Heinemann.) 

[277] 


fact  for  a  time  wreck  civilization  in  much  of  Europe, 
we  should  be  fighting  wars  of  religion  yet;  and  our 
populations  sanctioning  religious  massacre. 

If  we  have  a  vast  change  in  the  general  ideas  of 
Europe  in  one  particular,  in  the  attitude  of  men  to 
dogma,  to  the  importance  which  they  attach  to  it,  to 
their  feeling  about  it,  a  change  which  for  good  or 
evil  is  a  vast  one  in  its  consequences,  a  moral  and 
intellectual  revulsion  which  has  swept  away  one  great 
difficulty  of  human  relationship  and  transformed  so- 
ciety, it  is  because  the  mass,  the  common  folk,  have 
been  led  to  challenge  the  premises  of  the  learned,  of 
those  in  authority.  By  so  doing  they  brought  the 
discussion  back  to  principles  so  broad  and  fundamen- 
tal that  the  data  became  the  facts  of  human  life  and 
experience  —  data  with  which  the  co7nmon  man  is  as 
familiar  as  the  scholar.  And  that  challenge  and  dis- 
cussion authority  always  at  the  first  regards  as  blas- 
phemous and  impious,  and  would  prevent  if  it  could. 
And  the  great  event  I  am  here  touching  upon  would 
seem  to  suggest  that  it  is  correct  reasoning  about  the 
daily  facts  of  life  and  experience  that  is  needed  be- 
fore we  can  hope  to  apply  learning  with  any  advan- 
tage —  or  even  without  disaster  —  to  such  things  as 
the  management  of  society. 

The  conclusion  that  it  was  not  the  learning  of  the 
expert,  but  common  thought  upon  broad  issues,  which 
changed  our  attitude  in  this  matter  does  not  rest  upon 
obscure  or  complex  historical  data.  It  may  be 
proven  by  reference  to  any  mind  that  typifies  modern 
feeling.  Most  moderns  for  instance,  reject  such  be- 
liefs as  that  in  the  eternal  damnation  of  the  unor- 

[278] 


thodox  or  of  unbaptlzed  infants.  Of  the  present- 
diy  millions  for  whom  such  a  belief  would  be  morally 
monstrous,  how  many  have  been  influenced  by  elab- 
orate study  concerning  the  validity  of  this  or  that 
text?  The  texts  simply  do  not  weigh  with  them, 
though  for  centuries  they  were  the  only  thing  that 
counted.  The  things  that  do  weigh  with  them  are 
profounder  and  simpler  —  a  sense  of  justice,  com- 
passion —  things  which  would  equally  have  led  the 
man  of  the  sixteenth  century  to  question  the  texts 
and  the  premises  of  the  Church,  if  discussion  had  been 
free.  It  is  because  it  was  not  free  that  the  social 
instinct  of  the  mass,  the  general  capacity  so  to  order 
their  relations  as  to  make  it  possible  for  them  to  live 
together,  became  distorted  and  vitiated.  And  the 
wars  of  religion  resulted.  To  correct  this  vitiation, 
to  abolish  these  disastrous  hates  and  misconceptions, 
elaborate  learning  was  not  needed.  Indeed,  it  was 
largely  elaborate  learning  which  had  occasioned 
them.  The  judges  who  burned  women  alive  for 
witch-craft,  or  inquisitors  who  sanctioned  that  pun- 
ishment for  heresy,  had  vast  and  terrible  stores  of 
learning.  JVhat  was  needed  was  that  these  learned 
folk  should  question  their  premises  in  the  light  of 
facts  of  common  knowledge.  It  is  by  so  doing  that 
their  errors  are  patent  to  the  quite  unlearned  of  our 
time.  No  layman  was  equipped  to  pass  judgment  on 
the  historical  reasons  which  might  support  the  credi- 
bility of  this  or  that  miracle,  on  the  intricate  argu- 
ments which  might  justify  this  or  that  point  of  dogma. 
But  the  layman  was  as  well  equipped,  indeed  he  was 
better  equipped  than   the   schoolman,   to   question 

[279] 


whether  God  would  ever  torture  men  everlastingly 
for  the  expression  of  honest  belief;  the  observer  of 
daily  occurrences,  to  say  nothing  of  the  physicist, 
was  as  able  as  the  theologian  to  question  whether  a 
readiness  to  believe  without  evidence  is  a  virtue  at 
all.  And  questions  of  the  damnation  of  infants, 
eternal  torment,  were  settled  not  by  the  men  equipped 
with  historical  and  ecclesiastical  scholarship,  but  by 
the  average  man,  going  back  to  the  broad  truths  of 
life,  to  first  principles,  asking  very  simple  questions, 
the  answer  to  which  depended  not  upon  the  validity 
of  texts,  but  upon  correct  reasoning  concerning  facts 
which  are  accessible  to  all,  upon  our  general  sense  of 
life  as  a  whole,  and  our  more  elementary  intuitions 
of  justice  and  mercy,  reasoning  and  intuitions  which 
the  learning  of  the  expert  often  distorts. 

Authority  always  tries  to  prevent  this  questioning 
of  its  premises  by  the  unlearned.  To  the  bishop  it 
seems  preposterous  and  an  obvious  menace  to  society 
and  good  morality  that  his  conclusions  in  theology 
should  be  questioned  by  any  bootblack.  But  experi- 
ence has  shown  over  and  over  again  that  the  Bishop 
is  sure  to  go  wrong  unless  his  conclusions  are  ques- 
tioned and  checked  by  the  bootblack;  and  that  un- 
less the  bootblack  has  the  liberty  of  so  doing  both 
will  fall  into  the  ditch. 

The  fact  that  the  bishop  or  the  statesman  should 
need  correction  by  the  unlearned  is  not  so  paradox- 
ical as  might  at  first  sight  appear.  For  what  is  the 
function  of  those  learned  and  authoritative  persons? 
It  is  to  do  the  best  for  the  bootblack  in  this  world 
and  the  next.      But  if  the  bishop  is  separated  from 

[280] 


his  wards  by  his  learning,  his  intellectual  pride  in  his 
own  conclusions,  his  class  interest  even,  he  is  no  fit 
judge  of  the  needs  and  conditions  of  the  bootblack. 
And  the  bootblack  himself  is  no  fit  judge  of  his  own 
case  even,  if  he  has  lost  the  habit  of  private  judg- 
ment. That  is  why  slaves  have  been  generally  in 
favour  of  their  own  slavery;  and  have  so  often 
fought  to  prolong  it. 

Exactly  the  service  which  extricated  us  from  the 
intellectual  and  moral  confusion  that  resulted  in  such 
catastrophes  in  the  field  of  religion,  is  needed  in 
the  field  of  politics.  From  certain  learned  folk  — 
writers,  poets,  professors  (German  and  other), 
journalists,  historians  and  rulers  —  the  public  have 
taken  certain  ideas  touching  Patriotism,  Nationalism, 
Imperialism,  the  nature  of  our  obligation  to  the 
State  and  so  on.  Ideas  which  may  be  right  or  wrong, 
but  which  —  we  are  all  agreed,  curiously  enough  — 
will  have  to  be  very  much  changed  if  men  are  ever 
to  live  together  in  peace  and  freedom  ^ ;  just  as  cer- 

^  Says  the  Daily  Chronicle  (October  4,  1916)  : 

"  Did  any  one  at  the  meeting  of  the  Congressional  Union  yester- 
day detect  the  irony  —  of  course  the  unintended  irony  —  of  Lord 
Bryce's  recommendation  addressed  to  a  branch  of  the  Christian 
Church  that  international  machinery  should  be  created  for  the  pres- 
ervation of  peace  among  men?  It  must  occur  at  least  to  the  reader 
of  the  address  that  in  the  Christian  Church  itself  we  have  had  such 
a  machinery  for  some  nineteen  centuries.  Nothing  in  this  war  of 
revelations  and  revolutions  has  astonished  the  world  more  than  the 
failure  of  all  forms  of  internationalism  to  be  international  —  Chris- 
tianity, Socialism,  civilization  have  all  become  as  distinctively  na- 
tional as  the  several  belligerent  armies  themselves,  and  in  Ger- 
many they  fight  for  the  Zeppelins  and  in  England  against  them. 
Nationalism  appears  to  be  the  master  virtue  of  the  day  to  which  all 
others  have  to  conform.  Whether  new  international  treaties  and 
understandings  will  prove  to  be  more  successful  than  Christiani^ 
in  securing  for  the  rational  side  of  man  chance  and  time  to  develop 
remains  to  be  seen,  but  it  is  doubtful." 

[281] 


tain  notions  concerning  the  institution  of  private 
property  will  have  to  be  changed  if  the  mass  of  men 
are  to  live  in  plenty. 

It  is  a  commonplace  of  militarist  argument  that 
so  long  as  men  feel  as  they  do  about  their  fatherland, 
about  patriotism  and  nationalism,  internationalism 
will  be  an  impossibility.  If  that  is  true  —  and  I 
think  it  is  —  peace  and  freedom  and  welfare  will 
wait  until  those  large  issues  have  been  raised  in  men's 
minds  with  sufficient  vividness  to  bring  about  a  change 
of  idea  and  so  a  change  of  feeling  with  reference  to 
them. 

It  is  unlikely,  to  say  the  least,  that  the  mass  of 
Englishmen  or  Frenchmen  will  ever  be  in  possession 
of  detailed  knowledge  sufficient  to  equip  them  to 
pass  judgment  on  the  various  rival  solutions  of  the 
complex  problems  that  face  us,  say,  in  the  Balkans, 
when  the  settlement  of  Europe  comes.  And  yet  it 
was  inmiediately  out  of  a  problem  of  Balkan  politics 
that  the  war  arose,  and  future  wars  may  well  arise 
out  of  those  same  problems  if  they  are  settled  as 
badly  in  the  future  as  in  the  past. 

The  situation  would  indeed  be  helpless  if  the  na- 
ture of  human  relationships  depended  upon  the  peo- 
ple, as  a  whole,  possessing  expert  knowledge  in  com- 
plex questions  of  that  kind.  But,  happily,  the  Sara- 
jevo murders  would  never  have  developed  into  a 
war  involving  twenty-five  nations,  but  for  the  fact 
that  there  had  been  cultivated  in  Europe  suspicions, 
hatreds,  insane  passions  and  cupidities,  due  largely 
to  false  conceptions  of  a  few  simple  facts  in  po- 
litical relationship ;  conceptions  concerning  the  neces- 

[282] 


sary  rivalry  of  nations,  the  idea  that  what  one  na- 
tion gets  another  loses,  that  States  are  doomed  by  a 
fate  over  which  they  have  no  control  to  struggle 
together  for  the  space  and  opportunities  of  a  lim- 
ited world.  But  for  the  atmosphere  that  these  ideas 
create  (as  false  theological  notions  once  created  a 
similar  atmosphere  between  rival  religious  groups), 
most  of  these  at  present  difficult  and  insoluble  prob- 
lems of  nationality  and  frontiers  and  government 
would,  as  the  common  saying  is,  have  solved  them- 
selves. 

Now  the  conceptions  which  feed  and  inflame  these 
passions  of  rivalry,  hostility,  fear,  hate  v/ill  be  modi- 
fied, if  at  all,  by  raising  in  the  mind  of  the  European 
some  such  simple  elementary  questions  as  were  raised 
when  he  began  to  modify  his  feeling  about  the  man 
of  rival  religious  belief.  The  Political  Reformation 
in  Europe  will  come  by  questioning,  for  Instance,  the 
whole  philosophy  of  patriotism,  the  morality,  or 
validity,  in  terms  of  human  well-being  of  a  principle 
like  that  of  "  my  country,  right  or  wrong  ";  by  ques- 
tioning whether  a  people  really  benefit  by  enlarging 
the  frontiers  of  their  State;  whether  "  greatness  "  In 
a  nation  particularly  matters;  whether  the  man  of 
the  small  State  is  not  in  all  the  great  human  values 
the  equal  of  the  man  of  the  great  Empire.  Whether 
the  real  problems  of  life  —  not  alone  for  the  Boers 
or  Quebec  Frenchmen  or  the  millions  of  India,  but 
for  the  Europeans  as  well  —  are  greatly  touched  by 
the  colour  of  the  flag.  Whether  we  have  not  loyal- 
ties to  other  things  as  well  as  to  our  State.  Whether 
we  do  not  in  our  demand  for  national  sovereignty 

[283] 


ignore  International  obligation  without  which  the  na- 
tions can  have  neither  security  nor  freedom. 
Whether  we  should  not  refuse  to  kill  or  horribly 
mutilate  a  man  merely  because  we  differ  from  him 
in  politics.  And  with  those,  if  the  emergence  from 
chattel  slavery  is  to  be  completed  by  the  emergence 
from  wage  slavery,  must  be  put  similarly  fundamen- 
tal questions  concerning  institutions  like  that  of  pri- 
vate property  and  the  relation  of  social  freedom 
thereto;  we  must  ask  why,  if  it  is  rightly  demanded 
of  the  citizen  that  his  life  shall  be  forfeit  to  the 
safety  of  the  State,  his  surplus  money  and  property 
shall  not  be  forfeit  to  its  welfare. 

To  very  many,  these  questions  will  seem  a  kind 
of  blasphemy,  and  they  will  regard  those  who  utter 
them  as  the  subjects  of  a  loathsome  moral  perversion. 
In  just  that  way  the  orthodox  of  old  regarded  the 
heretic  and  his  blasphemies.  And  yet  the  solution 
of  the  difficulties  of  our  time,  this  problem  of  learn- 
ing to  live  together  without  mutual  homicide  and 
military  slavery,  depend  upon  those  blasphemies  be- 
ing uttered.  Because  it  Is  only  in  some  such  way  that 
the  premises  of  the  differences  which  divide  us,  the 
realities  which  underlie  them,  will  receive  attention. 
It  is  not  that  the  implied  answer  is  necessarily  the 
truth  —  I  am  not  concerned  now  for  a  moment  to 
urge  that  it  is  —  but  that  until  the  problem  is  pushed 
back  in  our  minds  to  these  great  yet  simple  issues, 
the  will,  temper,  general  ideas  of  Europe  on  this 
subject  will  remain  unchanged.  And  if  they  remain 
unchanged  so  will  its  conduct  and  condition. 

Now  I  am  suggesting  here  that  we  are  drifting  to 
[284I 


a  condition  o^  Institutions  calculated  to  suppress  these 
heresies,  to  prevent  those  questions  being  asked. 
We  believe  that  it  is  pernicious  that  they  should  be 
asked  at  all,  and  the  power  of  the  State  is  being  used 
for  the  purpose  of  preventing  it. 

I  have  attempted  to  show  that  our  welfare  and 
freedom  really  do  depend  upon  our  preserving  this 
right  of  the  individual  conscience  to  the  expression 
of  its  convictions;  this  right  of  the  heretic  to  his 
heresy.  The  claim  has  been  based  not  upon  any 
conception  of  abstract  "right" — jus,  droit,  recht 
—  but  upon  utility,  our  needs  of  heresy,  upon  the 
fact  that  if  we  do  not  preserve  it  it  is  not  alone  the 
individual  heretic  who  will  suffer,  but  all  of  us,  so- 
ciety. By  suppressing  the  free  dissemination  of  un- 
popular ideas,  we  render  ourselves  incapable  of  gov- 
erning ourselves  to  our  own  advantage,  and  we  shall 
perpetuate  that  condition  of  helplessness  and  slav- 
ery for  the  mass  which  all  our  history  so  far  has 
shown. 

I  have  stressed  that  point  because  the  protagonist 
who  attempts  thus  to  place  the  case  for  freedom  and 
welfare  upon  its  real  foundation  feels  always  this 
difficulty:  that  in  the  mind  of  most  perhaps,  certainly 
of  very  many  who  call  themselves  democrats,  there 
is  a  feeling  not  avowed,  but  real,  that  the  mind  and 
opinion  and  temper  of  the  common  folk  do  not  mat- 
ter, that  the  science  of  government,  like  other  sci- 
ences, should  be  left  to  the  experts,  and  that  there  is 
something  ridiculous  in  the  spectacle  of  a  bricklayer's 
labourer  laying  down  the  law  in  matters  of  high 
policy  and  passing  judgment  upon  an  authority  who 

[285] 


has  given  his  life  to  the  study  of  the  matter  under 
judgment. 

As  a  matter  of  simple  fact  no  Government  ever 
has  accomplished  for  long,  save  by  virtue  of  the 
quality  of  those  whom  it  governs,  those  ends  we  are 
now  agreed  upon  as  the  proper  ends  of  governments. 
Mexico  or  Venezuela  may  have  constitutions  as  ex- 
cellent as  that  of  England;  they  may  have  a  small 
class  drawn  from  their  universities  as  educated  as  the 
members  of  our  own  Government.  But  neither  the 
Constitution,  nor  the  education  of  the  minority,  can 
assure  to  Mexico  or  Venezuela  the  results  which  are 
assured  in  England  by  virtue  of  the  better  general 
sense,  understanding,  capacity  for  self-government  of 
the  mass  of  English  folk.  And  whether  one  tests 
this  general  proposition  by  such  cases  as  Russia  or 
India  or  certain  cases  of  the  past,  its  validity  is  un- 
shaken. 

Do  we  sufficiently  realize  that  a  nation  cannot 
think,  any  more  than  a  corporation  can?  That  a 
nation's  thought  can  only  come  from  individual 
thought  —  by  the  thought  of  certain  definite  men. 
If  a  committee  composed  of  Jones  and  Brown  take 
a  certain  decision,  and  Jones  vt)tes  a  certain  way  be- 
cause Brown  does,  and  Brown  votes  that  way  because 
Jones  does,  what  is  the  basis  of  their  "  collective 
wisdom  "  ?  Unless  each  questions  his  own  mind,  ex- 
ercises his  own  individual  judgment,  there  could  be 
no  collective  wisdom.  Nothing  multiplied  a  million 
times  is  still  nothing.  And  a  million  Calibans  are 
not  less  dangerous  than  one.^ 

'■"Though  the  customs  be  both  Rood  as  customs,  and  suitable  to 
[286] 


The  need  of  individuality  in  thought  increases  in 
direct  ratio  to  the  increasing  complexity  of  our  so- 
cial arrangements.  The  very  fact  that  we  do  need 
more   and   more   unity   of   action  —  regimentation, 

him,  yet  to  conform  to  custom,  merely  as  custom,  does  not  educate 
or  develop  in  him  any  of  the  qualities  which  are  the  distinctive 
endowments  of  a  human  being.  The  human  faculties  of  perception, 
judgment,  discriminative  feeling,  mental  activity,  and  even  moral 
preference,  are  exercised  only  in  making  a  choice.  He  who  does 
anything  because  it  is  the  custom,  makes  no  choice.  He  gains  no 
practice  either  in  discerning  or  in  desiring  what  is  best.  The  men- 
tal and  moral,  like  the  muscular  powers,  are  improved  only  by 
being  used.  The  faculties  are  called  into  no  exercise  by  doing  a 
thing  merely  because  others  do  it,  no  more  than  by  believing  a 
thing  only  because  others  believe  it.  If  the  grounds  of  an  opinion 
are  not  conclusive  to  the  person's  own  reason,  his  reason  cannot  be 
strengthened,  but  is  likely  to  be  weakened,  b\'  his  adopting  it:  and 
if  the  inducements  to  an  act  are  not  such  as  are  consentaneous  to  his 
own  feelings  and  character  (where  affection,  or  the  rights  of  others, 
are  not  concerned)  it  is  so  much  done  towards  rendering  his  feel- 
ings and  character  inert  and  torpid,  instead  of  active  and  energetic. 
"  He  who  lets  the  world,  or  his  own  portion  of  it,  choose  his 
plan  of  life  for  him,  has  no  need  of  any  other  faculty  than  the  ape- 
like one  of  imitation.  He  who  chooses  his  plan  for  himself,  employs 
all  his  faculties.  He  must  use  observation  to  see,  reasoning  and 
judgment  to  foresee,  activity  to  gather  materials  for  decision,  dis- 
crimination to  decide  and,  when  he  has  decided,  firmness  and  self- 
control  to  hold  to  his  deliberate  decision.  And  these  qualities  he 
requires  and  exercises  exactly  in  proportion  as  the  part  of  his  con- 
duct which  he  determines  according  to  his  own  judgment  and  feel- 
ing is  a  large  one.  It  is  possible  that  he  might  be  guided  in  some 
good  path,  and  kept  out  of  harm's  way,  without  any  of  these  things. 
But  what  will  be  his  comparative  worth  as  a  human  being?  It 
really  is  of  importance,  not  only  what  men  do,  but  also  what  man- 
ner of  men  they  are  that  do  it.  Among  the  works  of  man,  which 
human  life  is  rightly  employed  in  perfecting  and  beautifying,  the 
first  in  importance  surely  is  man  himself.  Supposing  it  were  possi- 
ble to  get  houses  built,  corn  grown,  battles  fought,  causes  tried,  and 
even  churches  erected  and  prayers  said,  by  machinery  —  by  automa- 
tons in  human  form  —  it  would  be  a  considerable  loss  to  exchanee 
for  these  automatons  even  the  men  and  women  who  at  present  in- 
habit the  more  civilized  parts  of  the  yvorld,  and  who  assuredly  are 
but  starved  specimens  of  what  nature  can  and  will  produce.  Hu- 
man nature  is  not  a  machine  to  be  built  after  a  model,  and  set  to 
do  exactly  the  work  prescribed  for  it,  but  a  tree,  which  reouires 
to  grow  and  develop  itself  on  all  sides,  according  to  the  tendency 
of  the  inward  forces  which  make  it  a  living  thing." —  Mill's  "  Lib- 
erty," p.  34  (Edition  1913). 

[287] 


regulation  —  In  order  to  make  a  large  population 
with  many  needs  possible  at  all,  is  the  reason  mainly 
which  makes  it  so  important  to  preserve  variety  and 
freedom  of  individual  thought.  If  ever  we  are  to 
make  the  adjustments  between  the  rival  claims  of 
the  community  and  the  individual,  between  national 
sovereignty  or  independence  and  international  obliga- 
tion, between  the  need  for  common  action  and  the 
need  for  individual  judgment,  if  ever  our  minds  are 
to  be  equal  to  the  task  of  managing  our  increasingly 
complex  society,  we  must  preserve  with  growing 
scrupulousness  the  right  of  private  judgment  in  po- 
litical matters.  Because  upon  that  capacity  for  pri- 
vate judgment,  a  capacity  that  can  only  be  developed 
by  its  exercise,  depends  the  capacity  for  public  judg- 
ment, for  political  and  social  success,  success,  that  is, 
in  living  together  in  this  world  of  ours,  most  largely 
and  most  satisfactorily. 

The  truth  of  which  I  am  trying  to  remind  the 
reader  is  not  precisely  a  new  discovery.  It  troubled 
Plato  some  four  hundred  years  before  Christ  and  was 
demonstrated  by  Mill  some  eighteen  hundred  and 
fifty  after.  But  it  is  one  of  those  truths  that  our 
primitive  passions  are  perpetually  smothering.  If 
the  great  truths  were  not  in  this  way  repeatedly  being 
smothered  we  should  not  now  be  fighting  the  ten  thou- 
sandth war  of  history  —  the  previous  ones,  of  course, 
having  been  fought  to  establish  a  "  lasting  peace," 
though  they  do  not  seem  to  have  been  notably  suc- 
cessful in  that  respect. 

It  is  not  the  mind  of  the  heretic  which  suffers  most, 
as  Mill  has  reminded  us,  in  the  suppression  of  heret- 

[288] 


Icai  opinion.  "  The  greatest  harm  done  Is  to  thos6 
who  are  not  heretics  but  whose  mental  development 
is  cramped  and  their  reason  cowed  by  the  fear  of 
heresy.  .  .  .  It  is  not  solely  or  chiefly  to  form  great 
thinkers  that  freedom  of  thinking  is  required.  On 
the  contrary,  it  is  as  much  and  even  more  indis- 
pensable to  enable  average  human  beings  to  attain 
the  mental  stature  which  they  are  capable  of.  There 
have  been,  and  may  be  again,  great  individual  think- 
ers in  a  general  atmosphere  of  mental  slavery.  But 
there  has  never  been,  nor  ever  will  be  in  that  atmos- 
phere an  intellectually  active  people.  Where  any 
people  has  made  a  temporary  approach  to  such  a 
character,  it  has  been  because  the  dread  of  heterodox 
speculation  was  for  a  time  suspended.  Where  there 
is  a  tacit  convention  that  principles  are  not  to  be 
disputed;  where  the  discussion  of  the  greatest  ques- 
tions which  can  occupy  humanity  is  considered  to  be 
closed,  we  cannot  hope  to  find  that  generally  high 
scale  of  mental  activity  which  has  made  some  periods 
of  history  so  remarkable.  Never,  when  controversy 
avoided  the  subjects  which  are  large  and  important 
enough  to  kindle  enthusiasm,  was  the  mind  of  a  peo- 
ple stirred  up  from  its  foundations,  and  the  impulse 
given  which  raised  even  persons  of  the  most  ordinary 
intellect  to  something  of  the  dignity  of  thinking  be- 
ings. Of  such  we  had  an  example  in  the  condition 
of  Europe  in  the  times  immediately  following  the 
Reformation;  another,  and  although  limited  to  the 
Continent  and  to  a  more  cultivated  class,  in  the 
speculative  movement  in  the  latter  half  of  the  eight- 
eenth century;  and  a  third,  of  still  briefer  duration, 

[289] 


in  the  Intellectual  fermentation  of  Germany,  during 
the  Goethean  and  Fichtean  period.  These  periods 
differed  widely  in  the  particular  opinions  which  they 
developed ;  but  were  alike  in  this,  that  during  all  three 
the  yoke  of  authority  was  broken.  In  each  an  old 
mental  despotism  had  been  thrown  off  and  no  new 
one  had  yet  taken  its  place.  .  .  .  Every  single  im- 
provement which  has  since  taken  place  in  the  human 
mind  or  in  institutions  may  be  traced  distinctly  to  one 
or  other  of  them.  Appearances  have  for  some  time 
indicated  that  all  three  impulses  are  well  nigh  spent; 
and  we  can  expect  no  fresh  start  until  we  again  assert 
our  mental  freedom."  ^ 

If  the  German  nation  as  a  whole  has  lost  its  ca- 
pacity for  sound  political  judgment,  if  its  public  opin- 
ion is  at  times  such  as  to  shock  civilization,  it  is 
largely  because  of  the  readiness  of  the  individual  to 
yield  to  governmental  authority  in  matters  of  opin- 
ion. You  cannot  have  enough  liberty  without  hav- 
ing too  much  of  it.  If  the  English  race  has  devel- 
oped the  capacity  for  freedom,  democracy  and  par- 
liamentary government,  a  little  perhaps  ahead  of 
that  shown  by  other  peoples,  it  is  because  obstinacy 
and  stubbornness  of  private  opinion  have  been  found 
among  us,  and  our  Government  heretofore  has  never 
been  quite  able,  even  in  the  very  highest  causes,  to 
stamp  it  out. 

Mr.  Edmond  Holmes,  the  educationalist,  in  a  work 
In  which  he  attempts  to  analyze  the  moral  and  intel- 
lectual causes  of  the  catastrophe  which  has  come  upon 
Germany,  a  work  which  he  has  called  "  The  Neme- 

1"  Liberty,"  Longman's  1913  edition,  p.  20. 
[290] 


sis  of  Docility,"  and  in  which  he  sketches  the  fashion 
in  which  the  State  has  bit  by  bit  captured  the  mind 
of  the  people,  says : — 

If,  as  a  soldier,  the  German  citizen  is  the  victim  of  the 
iron  discipline  on  which  the  army  has  always  prided  itself, 
as  a  civilian  he  is  subjected  to  a  less  severe  but  more  insidious 
pressure.  For,  whatever  harm  this  pressure  may  have  done 
to  his  character  he  is  in  part  to  blame.  As  I  have  already 
pointed  out  he  has  allowed  the  State,  through  its  control  of 
the  various  moulds  and  organs  of  opinion,  to  suggest  to  him 
what  he  is  to  think,  to  believe  and  to  say;  and  to  do  this  so 
effectually  that  he  has  come  at  last  to  regard  those  thoughts, 
beliefs  and  words  as  his  own.  In  other  words,  he  has  al- 
lowed the  State  to  take  possession  of  his  moral  and  spiritual 
springs  of  action,  and  so  usurp  the  functions  of  bis  own  higher 
self. 

Under  the  influence  of  this  insidious  pressure,  changes  of 
vital  importance  may  be  expected  to  take  place  in  his  inner 
being.  The  stern,  direct,  dogmatic  pressure  of  military  dis- 
cipline, which  tends  to  deaden  the  moral  sensibility  of  the 
soldier,  aft'ects  the  citizen  for  two  years  of  his  early  life, 
then  its  influence  lessens  and  begins  to  wear  off.  But  if  his 
moral  sensibility  should  survive  or  recover  from  that  experi- 
ence, it  would  be  exposed  in  civil  life  to  a  new  danger,  the 
danger  of  undergoing  a  morbid  transformation  in  two  dis- 
tinct directions.  The  man  who  allows  the  State  to  take 
the  place  of  his  higher  self  surrenders  his  judgment  —  his 
power  and  his  right  to  think  out  and  solve  his  moral  prob- 
lems for  himself;  and  he  loses  his  sense  of  responsibility  to 
his  own  conscience.  These  changes  come  upon  him  so 
stealthily  that  he  may  never  become  aware  of  either  of  them. 
He  may  flatter  himself  that  he  is  exercising  his  judgment, 
when  all  the  time  he  is  really  thinking,  desiring  and  purpos- 
ing whatever  the  State  wishes  him  to  think,  desire  and  pur- 
pose. And  he  may  hold  himself  responsible  to  his  conscience, 
when  all  the  time  the  State  has  usurped  that  seat  of  author- 

[291] 


fty,  and  is  whispering  from  it  suggestions  to  him  which  he 
mistakes  for  the  dictate  of  his  own  higher  self.  And  while 
the  changes  are  going  on  in  him,  the  uniform  pressure  of  State 
control  is  crushing  his  individuality  on  all  the  planes  of  his 
being,  and  the  dominant  theory  of  the  state  is  perverting  the 
latent  idealism  of  his  heart.  With  all  these  insidious  influ- 
ences brought  to  bear  on  him  by  the  ubiquitous  State  can  we 
wonder  that  the  ethics  of  humanity  cease  to  appeal  to  him, 
and  that,  as  the  soldier,  looks  at  things  from  a  point  of  view 
which  is  exclusively  military,  so  he  gets  at  last  to  look  at 
things  from  a  point  of  view  which  is  exclusively  national, 
and  therefore  anti-human  and  profoundly  immoral. 

The  question  which  it  Is  surely  the  duty  of  every 
Englishman  and  American  at  this  time  to  put  to  him- 
self is  this:  are  the  tempers  and  tendencies  of  war- 
time pushing  us  towards  methods  and  Institutions 
similar  to  those  which  have  been  so  disastrous  for 
Germany? 

Always  does  authority  In  justification  of  Its  pow- 
ers over  opinion  plead  that  the  Ideas  which  it  Is  sup- 
pressing are  wicked  and  pernicious.  It  Is  the  plea 
now  made.  The  Ideas  professed  by  conscientious 
objectors  are  the  result  of  loathsome  moral  perver- 
sion; those  who  oppose  the  war  are  outrageously 
wicked  or  absurd.  Then  In  that  case,  they  cannot 
possibly  be  a  national  danger,  and  can  be  safely  Ig- 
nored. Why  need  authority  worry,  for  Instance, 
about  our  Russells,  Eastmans,  Stokes,  Debs? 

Here  are  the  constituted  authorities  having  on 
their  side  all  the  vast  powers  of  the  State,  the  pres- 
tige of  the  established  fact,  the  irresistible  current 
of  nearly  the  whole  national  feeling,  practically  every 
paper  In  the  country,  the  weight  of  wealth  and  fash- 

[292] 


Ion,  practically  all  of  organized  religion.  And  there 
arises  here  and  there  an  isolated  thinker,  with  no 
great  organizations  behind  him,  no  great  daily  pa- 
pers, no  churches,  but  just  the  force  of  the  ideas 
which  he  presents.  And  forthwith  the  State  has  to 
distort  its  already  extraordinary  powers  to  persecute 
these  men,  deprive  them  of  their  occupation,  fine 
them,  imprison  them.  Is  it,  then,  afraid  of  the  only 
thing  these  men  possess:  an  idea?  If  not,  why  not 
let  them  freely  expound  those  ideas,  circulate  their 
leaflets,  publish  their  pamphlets?  If  the  ideas  are 
as  absurd  and  pernicious  as  the  authorities  would 
have  us  believe,  who  will  listen?  A  few,  let  us  say, 
the  degenerates,  the  cowards,  the  foolish  and  un- 
worthy. But  those  could  never  be  a  danger  to  the 
State,  could  never  seriously  interfere  with  the  mili- 
tary machine.  Why,  then  introduce  the  methods  of 
Torquemada  for  so  negligible  a  danger?  If  those  in 
authority  really  believed  the  ideas  to  be  as  monstrous 
and  foolish  as  they  pretend,  they  would  simply 
take  no  notice  of  them.  The  ideas  would  condemn 
themselves.  The  fact  that  the  authorities  do  believe 
it  necessary  to  suppress  the  dissemination  of  those 
ideas  is  demonstration  that  they  feel  at  the  bottom  of 
their  hearts  that  "  there  is  something  in  them  " ;  that 
they  are  capable,  if  freely  disseminated,  of  reaching 
others  than  the  negligible  and  unworthy.  They  dis- 
like these  ideas,  they  fear  them.  And  that  is  why 
they  suppress  them. 

And,  unfortunately,  we  cannot  console  ourselves 
with  the  thought  that  force  is  never  successful  in  the 
suppression  of  ideas.     It  is  often  successful.     The 

[293] 


quality  of  our  society  Improves  so  slowly  largely  be- 
cause it  is  so  successful.  We  know  of  the  heretics 
that  have  survived,  that  have  given  us  the  ideas  that 
have  served  us  best,  that  have  given  us  the  advances 
that  we  have  made.  But  what  of  the  heretics  that 
would  have  given  us  those  liberations  centuries  ear- 
lier if  we  had  not  managed  to  suppress  them? 

The  Europe  of  the  past  entangled  herself  in  a  net 
of  her  own  weaving  —  the  work  largely  of  theolog- 
ical professors,  as  our  net  today  is  woven  so  largely 
by  political  professors.  Each  religious  group  had 
convinced  itself  that  everything  it  most  valued  on 
earth,  the  existence  of  any  kind  of  morality,  its  spir- 
itual freedom  here  as  well  as  its  eternal  salvation 
later,  depended  upon  its  defending  itself  by  military 
power  against  the  power  of  other  groups  —  defence, 
of  course,  involving  preventive  wars.  There  was 
only  one  thing  which  could,  and  finally  did,  put  an 
end  to  the  resulting  welter :  a  revision  of  the  prevail- 
ing conceptions  as  to  the  relation  of  military  force 
and  power  over  the  other  group  to  those  moral  and 
spiritual  values. 

The  modification  of  conception,  theory,  "  sover- 
eign idea,"  what  you  will,  was  only  possible  as  the 
result  of  certain  heresies,  of  the  conflict  of  one  idea 
with  another,  and  so  the  correction  of  both.  But 
that  one  solution,  the  one  means  of  egress,  the  man 
of  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries  in  Europe 
deliberately  closed  by  making  heresy  the  gravest 
moral  offence  which  men  could  commit.  Each  side 
killed  its  heretic.  What  was  more  important  was 
that  they  killed  with  him  the  capacity  of  the  mass  to 

[294] 


think  clearly  —  or  to  think  at  all  on  the  subjects  that 
the  heretic  raised,  for  a  community  which  has  no 
heretics,  which  is  of  one  mind  on  a  given  matter,  is 
on  that  matter  mindless.  If  the  rival  communities 
had  been  successful  in  the  attempt  to  protect  them- 
selves by  military  means  from  heresy  within  and 
without,  we  should  have  been  fighting  wars  of  re- 
ligion yet,  and  perhaps  organizing  our  massacres  of 
St.  Bartholomew.  But  certain  forces,  mechanical, 
like  the  cheapening  of  printing;  moral,  like  the  readi- 
ness of  the  heretic  to  suffer,  were  too  strong  for  the 
imperfect  organization  of  the  State  or  the  Holy  Of- 
fice. But  the  modern  State  —  as  Germany  proves 
—  can  be  more  efficient  in  the  control  of  opinion  and 
the  consequent  suppression  of  heresy.  And  we  can 
hardly  doubt  that  if  unity  of  political  belief  seems  — 
even  though  it  may  not  really  be  —  necessary  to  the 
successful  conversion  of  a  nation  into  a  military  in- 
strument, the  modern  State  will  kill  political  heresy 
even  more  successfully  than  the  Church-State  killed 
religious  heresy;  and  in  lesser  or  greater  degree  with 
the  analogous  result  of  rendering  Europe  impotent 
to  solve  the  very  problems  with  which  our  institutions 
were  created  to  grapple. 


[295] 


APPENDIX  I 

LABOUR  AND  THE  NEW  SOCIAL  ORDER 

A  DRAFT  REPORT  ON  RECONSTRUCTION 

[The  follo<wing  Draft  Report  on  the  General  Policy  of  the  Party 
on  "  Reconstruction  "  has  been  prepared  by  a  Sub-Committee  of  the 
Executive  for  the  consideration  of  the  Party;  and  is  submitted  by 
the  Executive  to  the  annual  Conference  at  Nottingham,  not  for 
adoption  but  icnth  a  view  to  its  being  specially  referred  to  the  con- 
stituent organizations  for  discussion  and  eventual  submission  to  the 
Party  Conference  to  be  arranged  for  June  next,  or  a  special  Confer- 
ence should  a  General  Election  render  it  necessary.'} 

It  behooves  the  Labour  Party,  in  formulating  its  own  programme 
for  Reconstruction  after  the  war,  and  in  criticizing  the  various 
preparations  and  plans  that  are  being  made  by  the  present  Govern- 
ment, to  look  at  the  problem  as  a  whole.  We  have  to  make  it  clear 
what  it  is  that  we  wish  to  construct.  It  is  important  to  emphasize 
the  fact  that,  whatever  may  be  the  case  with  regard  to  other  political 
parties,  our  detailed  practical  proposals  proceed  from  definitely  held 
principles. 

THE  END  OF  A  CIVILIZATION 

We  need  to  beware  of  patchwork.  The  view  of  the  Labour  Party 
is  that  what  has  to  be  reconstructed  after  the  war  is  not  this  or  that 
Government  Department,  or  this  or  that  piece  of  social  machinery; 
but,  so  far  as  Britain  is  concerned,  society  itself.  The  individual 
worker,  or  for  that  matter  the  individual  statesman,  immersed  in 
daily  routine  —  like  the  individual  soldier  in  a  battle  —  easily  fails 
to  understand  the  magnitude  and  far-reaching  importance  of  what 
is  taking  place  around  him.  How  does  it  fit  together  as  a  whole? 
How  does  it  look  from  a  distance?  Count  Okuma,  one  of  the  oldest, 
most  experienced  and  ablest  of  the  statesmen  of  Japan,  watching  the 
present  conflict  from  the  other  side  of  the  globe,  declares  it  to  be 
nothing  less  than  the  death  of  European  civilization.  Just  as  in  the 
past  the  civilizations  of  Babylon,  Egjpt,  Greece,  Carthage,  and  the 
great  Roman  Empire  have  been  successively  destroyed,  so,  in  the 
judgment  of  this  detached  observer,  the  civilization  of  all  Europe  is 
even  now  receiving  its  death-blow.  We  of  the  Labour  Party  can 
so  far  agree  in  this  estimate  as  to  recognize,  in  the  present  world 

[297] 


catastrophe,  if  not  the  death,  in  Europe,  of  civilization  itself,  at  any 
rate  the  culmination  and  collapse  of  a  distinctive  industrial  civiliza- 
tion, which  the  workers  will  not  seek  to  reconstruct.  At  such  times 
of  crisis  It  is  easier  to  slip  into  ruin  than  to  progress  into  higher 
forms  of  organization.  That  is  the  problem  as  it  presents  itself  to 
the  Labour  Party  today. 

What  this  war  is  consuming  is  not  merely  the  security,  the  homes, 
the  livelihood  and  the  lives  of  millions  of  innocent  families,  and  an 
enormous  proportion  of  all  the  accumulated  wealth  of  the  world, 
but  also  the  very  basis  of  the  peculiar  social  order  in  which  it  has 
arisen.  The  individualist  system  of  capitalist  production,  based  on 
the  private  ownership  and  competitive  administration  of  land  and 
capital,  with  its  reckless  "profiteering"  and  wage-slavery;  with 
its  glorification  of  the  unhampered  struggle  for  the  means  of  life  and 
its  hypocritical  pretence  of  the  "  survival  of  the  fittest " ;  with  the 
monstrous  inequality  of  circumstances  which  it  produces  and  the 
degradation  and  brutalization,  both  moral  and  spiritual,  resulting 
therefrom,  may,  we  hope,  indeed  have  received  a  death-blow.  With 
it  must  go  the  political  system  and  ideas  in  which  it  naturally  found 
expression.  We  of  the  Labour  Party,  whether  in  opposition  or  in 
due  time  called  upon  to  form  an  Administration,  will  certainly  lend 
no  hand  to  its  revival.  On  the  contrary,  we  shall  do  our  utmost  to 
see  that  it  is  buried  with  the  millions  whom  it  has  done  to  death-  If 
we  in  Britain  are  to  escape  from  the  decay  of  civilization  itself,  which 
the  Japanese  statesman  foresees,  we  must  ensure  that  what  is  pres- 
ently to  be  built  up  is  a  new  social  order,  based  not  on  fighting,  but 
on  fraternity  —  not  on  the  competitive  struggle  for  the  means  of 
bare  life,  but  on  a  deliberately  planned  co-operation  in  production 
and  distribution  for  the  benefit  of  all  who  participate  by  hand  or  by 
brain  —  not  on  the  utmost  possible  inequality  of  riches,  but  on  a 
syste.natic  approach  towards  a  healthy  equality  of  material  circum- 
stances for  every  person  born  into  the  world  —  not  on  an  enforced 
dominion  over  subject  nations,  subject  races,  subject  Colonies,  subject 
classes  or  a  subject  sex,  but,  in  industry  as  well  as  in  government, 
on  that  equal  freedom,  that  general  consciousness  of  consent,  and 
that  widest  possible  participation  in  power,  both  economic  and  po- 
litical, which  is  characteristic  of  Democracy.  We  do  not,  of  course 
pretend  that  it  is  possible,  even  after  the  drastic  clearing  away  that 
is  now  going  on,  to  build  society  anew,  in  a  year  or  two  of  feverish 
"  Reconstruction."  What  the  Labour  Party  intends  to  satisfy  itself 
about  is  that  each  brick  that  it  helps  to  lay  shall  go  to  erect  the 
structure  that  it  intends,  and  no  other. 


THE  PILLARS  OF  THE  HOUSE 

We  need  not  here  recapitulate,  one  by  one,  the  different  items  in 
the  Labour  Party's  programme,  which  successive  Party  Conferences 
have  adopted.  These  proposals,  some  of  them  in  various  publica- 
tions worked  out  in  practical  detail,  are  often  carelessely  derided  as 
impracticable,  even  by  the  politicians  who  steal  them  piecemeal  from 
us!     The  members  of  the  Labour  Party,  themselves  actually  working 


[298] 


by  hand  or  by  brain,  in  close  contact  with  the  facts,  have  perhaps 
at  all  times  a  more  accurate  appreciation  of  what  is  practicable,  in 
industry  as  in  politics,  than  those  who  depend  solely  on  academic 
instruction  or  are  biased  by  great  possessions.  But  today  no  man 
dares  to  say  that  anything  is  impracticable.  The  war,  which  has 
scared  the  old  Political  Parties  right  out  of  their  dogmas,  has  taught 
every  statesman  and  every  Government  official,  to  his  enduring  sur- 
prise, how  very  much  more  can  be  done  along  the  lines  that  we  have 
laid  down  than  he  had  ever  before  thought  possible.  What  we  now 
promulgate  as  our  policy,  whether  for  opposition  or  for  office,  is  not 
merely  this  or  that  specific  reform,  but  a  deliberately  thought-out, 
systematic,  and  comprehensive  plan  for  that  immediate  social  re- 
building which  any  Ministry,  whether  or  not  it  desires  to  grapple 
with  the  problem,  will  be  driven  to  undertake.  The  Four  Pillars  of 
the  House  that  we  propose  to  erect,  resting  upon  the  common  founda- 
tion of  the  Democratic  control  of  society  in  all  its  activities,  may  be 
termed,  respectively: 

(a)  The  Universal  Enforcement  of  the  National  Minimum; 

(b)  The  Democratic  Control  of  Industry; 

(f)   The  Revolution  in  National  Finance;  and 
{d)   The  Surplus  Wealth  for  the  Common  Good. 

The  various  detailed  proposals  of  the  Labour  Party,  herein  briefly 
summarized,  rest  on  these  four  pillars,  and  can  best  be  appreciated 
in  connection  with  them. 

THE  UNIVERSAL  ENFORCEMENT  OF  A  NATIONAL 
MINIMUM 

The  first  principle  of  the  Labour  Party  —  in  significant  contrast 
with  those  of  the  Captialist  System,  whether  expressed  by  the  Liberal 
or  by  the  Conservative  Party  —  is  the  securing  to  every  member  of 
the  community,  in  good  times  and  bad  alike  (and  not  only  to  the 
strong  and  able,  the  well-born  or  the  fortunate),  of  all  the  requisites 
of  healthy  life  and  worthy  citizenship.  This  is  in  no  sense  a 
"  class  "  proposal.  Such  an  amount  of  social  protection  of  the  indi- 
vidual, however  poor  and  lowly,  from  birth  to  death  is,  as  the  econo- 
mist now  knows,  as  indispensable  to  fruitful  co-operation  as  it  is  to 
successful  combination ;  and  it  affords  the  only  complete  safeguard 
against  that  insidious  Degradation  of  the  Standard  of  Life,  which  is 
the  worst  economic  and  social  calamity  to  which  any  community  can 
be  subjected.  We  are  members  one  of  another.  No  man  liveth  to 
himself  alone.  If  any,  even  the  humblest  is  made  to  suffer,  the 
whole  community  and  every  one  of  us,  whether  or  not  we  recognize 
the  fact,  is  thereby  injured.  Generation  after  generation  this  has 
been  the  corner-stone  of  the  faith  of  Labour.  It  will  be  the  guid- 
ing principle  of  any  Labour  Government. 

The  Legislative  Regulation  of  Employment 

Thus  it  is  that  the  Labour  Party  to-day  stands  for  the  universal 
application  of  the  Policy  of  the  National  Minimum,  to  which    (a« 

[299] 


embodied  in  the  successive  elaborations  of  the  Factory,  Mines, 
Railways,  Shops,  Merchant  Shipping,  and  Truck  Acts,  the  Public 
Health,  Housing,  and  Education  Acts  and  the  mimiraum  Wage 
Act  —  all  of  them  aiming  at  the  enforcement  of  at  least  the  pre- 
scribed Minimum  of  Leisure,  Health,  Education,  and  Subsistence) 
the  spokesmen  of  Labour  have  already  gained  the  support  of  the  en- 
lightened statesmen  and  economists  of  the  world.  All  these  laws 
purporting  to  protect  against  extreme  Degradation  of  the  Standard 
of  Life  need  considerable  improvement  and  extension,  whilst  their 
administration  leaves  much  to  be  desired.  For  instance,  the  Work- 
men's Compensation  Act  fails,  shamefully,  not  merely  to  secure 
proper  provision  for  all  the  victims  of  accident  and  industrial  dis- 
ease, but  what  is  much  more  important,  does  not  succeed  in  pre- 
venting their  continual  increase.  The  amendment  and  consolida- 
tion of  the  Factories  and  Workshop  Acts,  with  their  extension  to  all 
employed  persons,  is  long  overdue,  and  it  will  be  the  policy  of 
Labour  greatly  to  strengthen  the  staff  of  inspectors,  especially  by 
the  addition  of  more  men  and  women  of  actual  experience  of  the 
workshop  and  the  mine.  The  Coal  Mines  (Minimum  Wage)  Act 
must  certainly  be  maintained  in  force,  and  suitably  amended,  so  as 
both  to  ensure  greater  uniformity  of  conditions  among  the  several 
districts,  and  to  make  the  District  Minimum  in  all  cases  an  effective 
reality.  The  same  policy  will,  in  the  interests  of  the  agricultural 
labourers,  dictate  the  perpetuation  of  the  Legal  Wage  clauses  of 
the  new  Corn  Law  just  passed  for  a  term  of  five  years,  and  the 
prompt  amendment  of  any  defects  that  may  be  revealed  in  their 
working.  And,  ie  view  of  the  fact  that  many  millions  of  wage-earn- 
ers, notably  women  and  the  less-skilled  workmen  in  various  oc- 
cupations, are  unable  by  combination  to  obtain  wages  adequate  for 
decent  maintenance  in  health,  the  Labour  Party  intends  to  see  that 
the  Trade  Boards  Act  is  suitably  amended  and  made  to  apply  to  all 
Industrial  employments  in  which  any  considerable  number  of  those 
employed  obtain  less  than  30s.  per  week.  This  minimum  of  not  less 
than  30s.  per  week  (which  will  need  revision  according  to  the  level 
of  prices)  ought  to  be  the  very  lowest  statutory  base  line  for  the 
least  skilled  adult  workers,  men  or  women,  in  any  occupation,  in  all 
parts  of  the  United  Kingdom. 

The  Organization  of  Demobilization 

But  the  coming  industrial  dislocation,  which  will  inevitably  fol- 
low the  discharge  from  war  service  of  half  of  all  the  working 
population,  imposes  new  obligations  upon  the  community.  The  de- 
mobilization and  discharge  of  the  eight  million  wage-earners  now 
being  paid  from  public  funds,  either  for  service  with  the  colours 
or  in  munition  work  and  other  war  trades,  will  bring  to  the  whole 
wage-earning  class  grave  peril  of  Unemployment,  Reduction  of 
Wages,  and  a  Lasting  Degradation  of  the  Standard  of  Life,  which 
can  be  prevented  only  by  deliberate  National  Organization.  The 
Labour  Party  has  repeatedly  called  upon  the  present  Government 
to  formulate  its  plan,  and  to  make  in  advance  all  arrangements 
necessary  for  coping  with  so  unparalleled  a  dislocation.    The  pol- 

[300] 


icy  to  which  the  Labour  Party  commits  itself  is  unhesitating  and  un- 
compromising. It  is  plain  that  regard  should  be  had,  in  stopping 
Government  orders,  reducing  the  staff  of  the  National  Factories  and 
demobilizing  the  Army,  to  the  actual  state  of  employment  in  par- 
ticular industries  and  in  different  districts,  so  as  both  to  release  first 
the  kinds  of  labour  most  urgently  required  for  the  revival  of  peace 
production,  and  to  prevent  any  congestion  of  the  market.  It  is  no 
less  imperative  that  suitable  provision  against  being  turned  sud- 
denly adrift  without  resources  should  be  made,  not  only  for  the 
soldiers,  but  also  for  the  three  million  operatives  in  munition  work 
and  other  war  trades,  who  will  be  discharged  long  before  most  of 
the  Army  can  be  disbanded.  On  this  important  point,  which  is 
the  most  urgent  of  all,  the  present  Government  has,  we  believe, 
down  to  the  present  hour,  formulated  no  plan,  and  come  to  no 
decision,  and  neither  the  Liberal  nor  the  Conservative  Party  has 
apparently  deemed  the  matter  worthy  of  agitation.  Any  Gov- 
ernment which  should  allow  the  discharged  soldier  or  munition 
worker  to  fall  into  the  clutches  of  charity  or  the  Poor  Law  would 
have  to  be  instantly  driven  from  office  by  an  outburst  of  popular 
indignation.  What  every  one  of  them  who  is  not  wholly  disabled 
will  look  for  is  a  situation  in  accordance  with  his  capacity. 

Securing  Employment  for  All 

The  Labour  Party  insists  —  as  no  other  political  part>'  has  thought 
fit  to  do  —  that  the  obligation  to  find  suitable  employment  in  pro- 
ductive work  for  all  these  men  and  women  rests  upon  the  Govern- 
ment for  the  time  being.  The  work  of  re-settling  the  disbanded 
soldiers  and  discharged  munition  workers  into  new  situations  is  a 
national  obligation ;  and  the  Labour  Party  emphatically  protests 
against  it  being  regarded  as  a  matter  for  private  charity.  It 
strongly  objects  to  this  public  duty  being  handed  over  either  to 
committees  of  philanthropists  or  benevolent  societies,  or  to  any  of 
the  military  or  recruiting  authorities.  The  policy  of  the  Labour 
Party  in  this  matter  is  to  make  the  utmost  use  of  the  Trade  Unions, 
and  equally  for  the  brain  workers,  of  the  various  Professional  As- 
sociations. In  view  of  the  fact  that,  in  any  trade,  the  best  organi- 
zation for  placing  men  in  situations  is  a  national  Trade  Union  hav- 
ing local  branches  throughout  the  kingdom,  every  soldier  should  be 
allowed,  if  he  chooses,  to  have  a  duplicate  of  his  industrial  dis- 
charge notice  sent  out,  one  month  before  the  date  fixed  for  his  dis- 
charge, to  the  Secretary  of  the  Trade  Union  to  which  he  belongs 
or  wishes  to  belong.  Apart  from  this  use  of  the  Trade  Union  (and 
a  corresponding  use  of  the  Professional  Association)  the  Govern- 
ment must,  of  course,  avail  itself  of  some  such  public  machinery  as 
that  of  the  Employment  Exchanges;  but  before  the  existing  Ex- 
changes (which  will  need  to  be  greatly  extended)  can  receive  the 
co-operation  and  support  of  the  organized  Labour  Movement,  with- 
out which  their  operations  can  never  be  fully  successful,  it  is  im- 
perative that  they  should  be  drastically  reformed,  on  the  lines  laid 
down  in  the  Demobilization  Report  of  the  "  Labour  after  the  War  " 
Joint  Committee ;   and,  in  particular,  that  each  Exchange  should  be 

[301] 


placed  eflFecrively  under  the  supervision  and  control  of  a  Joint  Com- 
mittee of  Employers  and  Trade  Unionists  in  equal  numbers. 

The  responsibility  of  the  Government,  for  the  time  being,  in 
the  grave  industrial  crisis  that  demobilization  will  produce,  goes, 
however,  far  beyond  the  eight  million  men  and  women  whom  the 
various  departments  will  suddenly  discharge  from  their  own  service. 
The  effect  of  this  peremptory  discharge  on  all  the  other  workers  has 
also  to  be  taken  into  account.  To  the  Labour  Party  it  will  seem  the 
supreme  concern  of  the  Government  of  the  day  to  see  to  it  that  there 
shall  be,  as  a  result  of  the  gigantic  "  General  Post "  which  it  will 
itself  have  deliberately  set  going,  nowhere  any  Degradation  of  the 
Standard  of  Life.  The  Government  has  pledged  itself  to  restore 
the  Trade  Union  conditions  and  "  pre-war  practices  "  of  the  work- 
shop, which  the  Trade  Unions  patriotically  gave  up  at  the  direct 
request  of  the  Government  itself;  and  his  solemn  pledge  must  be 
fulfilled,  of  course  in  the  spirit  as  well  as  in  the  letter.  The  Labour 
Party,  moreover,  holds  it  to  be  the  duty  of  the  Government  of  the 
day  to  take  all  necessary  steps  to  prevent  the  Standard  Rates  of 
Wages,  in  any  trade  or  occupation  whatsoever,  from  suffering  any 
reduction,  relatively  to  the  contemporary  cost  of  living.  LJnfor- 
tunately,  the  present  Government,  like  the  Liberal  and  Conservative 
Parties,  so  far  refuses  to  speak  on  this  important  matter  with  any 
clear  voice.  We  claim  that  it  should  be  a  cardinal  point  of  Gov- 
ernment policy  to  make  it  plain  to  every  capitalist  employer  that 
any  attempt  to  reduce  the  customary  rate  of  wages  when  peace 
comes,  or  to  take  advantage  of  the  dislocation  of  demobilization  to 
worsen  the  conditions  of  employment  in  any  grade  whatsoever,  will 
certainly  lead  to  embittered  industrial  strife,  which  will  be  in  the 
highest  degree  detrimental  to  the  national  interests;  and  that  the 
Government  of  the  day  will  not  hesitate  to  take  all  necessary  steps 
to  avert  such  a  calamity.  In  the  great  impending  crisis  the  Govern- 
ment of  the  day  should  not  only,  as  the  greatest  employer  of  both 
brainworkers  and  manual  workers,  set  a  good  example  in  this  re- 
spect but  should  also  actively  seek  to  influence  private  employers  by 
proclaiming  in  advance  that  it  will  not  itself  attempt  to  lower  the 
Standard  Rates  of  conditions  in  public  employment;  by  announcing 
that  it  will  insist  on  the  most  rigorous  observance  of  the  Fair  Wages 
Clause  in  all  public  contracts,  and  by  explicitly  recommending 
every  Local  Authority  to  adopt  the  same  policy. 

But  nothing  is  more  dangerous  to  the  Standard  of  Life,  or  so 
destructive  of  those  minimum  conditions  of  healthy  existence,  which 
must  in  the  interests  of  the  community  be  assured  to  every  worker, 
than  any  widespread  or  continued  unemployment.  It  has  always 
been  a  fundamental  principle  of  the  Labour  Party  (a  point  on  which 
significantly  enough  it  has  not  been  followed  by  either  of  the  other 
political  parties)  that  in  a  modern  industrial  community,  it  is  one  of 
the  foremost  obligations  of  the  Government  to  find,  for  every  willing 
worker  whether  by  hand  or  by  brain  productive  work  at  Standard 
Rates. 

It  is  accordingly  the  duty  of  the  Government  to  adopt  a  policy 
of  deliberately  and  systematically  preventing  the  occurrence  of  un- 
employment instead  of  (as  heretofore)   letting  unemployment  occur, 

[302] 


aDd  then  seeking  vainly  and  expensively  to  relieve  the  unemployed. 
It  is  now  known  that  the  Government  can  if  it  chooses,  arrange  the 
Public  Works  and  the  orders  of  National  Departments  and  Local 
Authorities  in  such  a  way  as  to  maintain  the  aggregate  demand 
for  labour  in  the  whole  kingdom  (including  that  of  capitalist  em- 
ployers) approximately  at  a  uniform  level  from  year  to  year; 
and  it  is  therefore  a  primary  obligation  of  the  Government  to  pre- 
vent any  considerable  or  widespread  fluctuations  in  the  total  num- 
bers employed  in  times  of  good  or  bad  trade.  But  this  is  not  all. 
In  order  to  prepare  for  the  possibility  of  there  being  any  unemploy- 
ment, either  in  the  course  of  demobilization  or  in  the  first  years  of 
peace  it  is  essential  that  the  Government  should  make  all  necessary 
preparations  for  putting  instantly  in  hand  directly  or  through  the 
Local  Authorities,  such  urgently  needed  public  works  as  (a)  the 
rehousing  of  the  population  alike  in  rural  districts,  mining  villages, 
and  town  slums,  to  the  extent,  possibly,  of  a  million  new 
cottages  and  an  outlay  of  300  millions  sterling;  (b)  the  immediate 
making  good  of  the  shortage  of  schools,  training  colleges,  technical 
colleges,  &c.,  and  the  engagement  of  the  necessarj-  additional  teach- 
ing, clerical  and  administrative  staflFs;  (c)  new  roads;  {d)  light 
railways;  (e)  the  unification  and  reorganization  of  the  railway  and 
canal  system;  (f)  afforestation;  (g)  the  reclamation  of  land;  (A) 
the  development  and  better  equipment  of  our  ports  and  harbours; 
(/)  the  opening  up  of  access  to  land  by  co-operative  small  holdings 
and  in  other  practicable  ways.  Moreover,  in  order  to  relieve  any 
pressure  of  an  overstocked  labour  market,  the  opportunity  should  be 
taken,  if  unemployment  should  threaten  to  become  widespread,  {a) 
immediately  to  raise  the  school  leaving  age  to  sixteen;  {b)  greatly 
to  increase  the  number  of  scholarships  and  bursaries  for  Secondary 
and  Higher  Education;  and  (c)  substantially  to  shorten  the  hours 
of  labour  of  all  young  persons,  even  to  a  greater  extent  than  the 
eight  hours  per  week  contemplated  in  the  new  Education  Bill,  in 
order  to  enable  them  to  attend  technical  and  other  classes  in  the 
daytime.  Finally,  wherever  practicable,  the  hours  of  adult  labour 
should  be  reduced  to  not  more  than  forty-eight  per  week,  without 
reduction  of  the  Standard  Rates  of  Wages.  There  can  be  no  eco- 
nomic or  other  justification  for  keeping  any  man  or  woman  to  work 
for  long  hours,  or  at  overtime,  whilst  others  are  unemployed. 

Social   Insurance   Against   Unemployment 

In  so  far  as  the  Government  fails  to  prevent  Unemployment  — 
wherever  it  finds  it  impossible  to  discover  for  any  willing  worker, 
man  or  woman,  a  suitable  situation  at  the  Standard  Rate  —  the 
Labour  Party  holds  that  the  Government  must,  in  the  interest  of 
the  community  as  a  whole,  provide  him  or  her  with  adequate  main- 
tenance, either  with  such  arrangements  for  honourable  employment 
or  with  such  useful  training  as  may  be  found  practicable,  accord- 
ing to  age,  health  and  previous  occupation.  In  many  ways  the  best 
form  of  provision  for  tho?e  who  must  be  unemployed,  because  the 
industrial  organization  of  the  community  so  far  breaks  down  as  to 
be  temporarily   unable   to  set   them   to  work,   is   the   Out  of  Work 

[303] 


Benefit  afforded  by  a  well  administered  Trade  Union.  This  is  a 
special  tax  on  the  Trade  Unionists  themselves  which  they  have  vol- 
untarily undertaken,  but  towards  which  they  have  a  right  to  claim 
a  public  subvention  —  a  subvention  which  was  actually  granted  by 
Parliament  (though  only  to  the  extent  of  a  couple  of  shillings  or 
so  per  week)  under  Part  II.  of  the  Insurance  Act.  The  arbitrary 
withdrawal  by  the  Government  in  1915  of  this  statutory  right  of 
the  Trade  Unions  was  one  of  the  least  excusable  of  the  war  econo- 
mies; and  the  Labour  Party  must  insist  on  the  resumption  of  thii 
subvention  immediately  the  war  ceases,  and  on  its  increase  to  at 
least  half  the  amount  spent  in  Out  of  Work  Benefit.  The  exten- 
sion of  State  Unemployment  Insurance  to  other  occupations  may 
afford  a  convenient  method  of  providing  for  such  of  the  Un- 
employed, especially  in  the  case  of  badly  paid  women  workers,  and 
the  less  skilled  men,  whom  it  is  difficult  to  organize  in  Trade  Un- 
ions. But  the  weekly  rate  of  the  State  Unemployment  Benefits 
needs,  in  these  days  of  high  prices,  to  be  considerably  raised; 
whilst  no  industry  ought  to  be  compulsorily  brought  within  its 
scope  against  the  declared  will  of  the  workers  concerned,  and 
especially  of  their  Trade  Unions.  In  one  way  or  another  remun- 
erative employment  or  honourable  maintenance  must  be  found  for 
every  willing  worker,  by  hand  or  by  brain,  in  bad  times  as  well  as 
in  good.  It  is  clear  that,  in  the  twentieth  century,  there  must  be  no 
question  of  driving  the  Unemployed  to  anything  so  obsolete  and  dis- 
credited as  either  private  charity,  with  its  haphazard  and  ill-con- 
sidered doles,  or  the  Poor  Law,  with  the  futilities  and  barbarities  of 
its  "  Stone  Yard  "  or  its  "  Able-bodied  Test  Workhouse."  Only  on 
the  basis  of  a  universal  application  of  the  Policy  of  the  National 
Minimum,  affording  complete  security  against  destitution,  in  sick- 
ness and  health,  in  good  times  and  bad  alike,  to  every  member  of 
the  community  of  whatever  age  or  sex,  can  any  worthy  social  order 
be  built  up. 

THE  DEMOCRATIC  CONTROL  OF  INDUSTRY 

The  universal  application  of  the  Policy  of  the  National  Minimum 
is,  of  course,  only  the  first  of  the  Pillars  of  the  House  that  the  La- 
bour Party  intends  to  see  built.  What  marks  off  this  Party  most  dis- 
tinctively from  any  of  the  other  political  parties  is  its  demand  for 
the  full  and  genuine  adoption  of  the  principle  of  Democracy.  The 
first  condition  of  Democracy  is  effective  personal  freedom.  This 
has  suffered  so  many  encroachments  during  the  war  that  it  is  neces- 
sary to  state  with  clearness  that  the  complete  removal  of  all  the  war- 
time restrictions  on  freedom  of  speech,  freedom  of  publication, 
freedom  of  the  press,  freedom  of  travel  and  freedom  of  choice  of 
place  of  residence  and  kind  of  employment  must  take  place  the  day 
after  Peace  is  declared.  The  Labour  Party  declared  emphatically 
against  any  continuance  of  the  Military  Service  Acts  a  moment 
longer  than  the  imperative  requirements  of  the  war  excuse.  But 
individual  freedom  is  of  little  use  without  complete  political  rights. 
The  Labour  Party  sees  its  repeated  demands  largely  conceded  in  the 
present  Representation  of  the  People  Act,  but  not  yet  wholly  satis< 

[304] 


fied.  The  Party  stands,  as  heretofore,  for  complete  Adult  Suffrage, 
with  not  more  than  a  three  months'  residential  qualification,  for 
effective  provision  for  absent  electors  to  vote,  for  absolutely  equal 
rights  for  both  sexes,  for  the  same  freedom  to  exercise  civic  rights 
for  the  "  common  soldier  "  as  for  the  officer,  for  Shorter  Parliaments, 
for  the  complete  Abolition  of  the  House  of  Lords,  and  for  a  most 
strenuous  opposition  to  any  new  Second  Chamber,  whether  elected 
or  not,  having  in  it  any  element  of  Heredity  or  Privilege,  or  of  the 
control  of  the  House  of  Commons  by  any  party  or  class.  But  unlike 
the  Conservative  and  Liberal  Parties,  the  Labour  Party  insists  on 
Democracy  in  industry  as  well  as  in  government.  It  demands  the 
progressive  elimination  from  the  control  of  industry  of  the  private 
capitalist,  individual  or  joint-stock ;  and  the  setting  free  of  all  who 
work,  whether  by  hand  or  by  brain,  for  the  service  of  the  community, 
and  of  the  community  only.  And  the  Labour  Party  refuses  absolutely 
to  believe  that  the  British  people  will  permanently  tolerate  any  re- 
construction or  perpetuation  of  the  disorganization,  waste  and  in- 
efficiency involved  in  the  abandonment  of  British  industry  to  a  jost- 
ling crowd  of  separate  private  employers,  with  their  minds  bent, 
not  on  the  service  of  the  community,  but  —  by  the  very  law  of  their 
being  —  only  on  the  utmost  possible  profiteering.  What  the  nation 
needs  is  undoubtedly  a  great  bound  onwards  in  its  aggregate  pro- 
ductivity. But  this  cannot  be  secured  merely  by  pressing  the 
manual  workers  to  more  strenuous  toil,  or  even  by  encouraging  the 
"  Captains  of  Industry "  to  a  less  wasteful  organization  of  their 
several  enterprises  on  a  profit-making  basis.  What  the  Labour 
Party  looks  to  is  a  genuinely  scientific  reorganization  of  the  na- 
tion's industry,  no  longer  deflected  by  individual  profiteering,  on 
the  basis  of  the  Common  Ownership  of  the  means  of  Production ; 
the  equitable  sharing  of  the  proceeds  among  all  who  participate  in 
any  capacity  and  only  among  these,  and  the  adoption,  in  particular 
services  and  occupation,  of  those  systems  and  methods  of  adminis- 
tration and  control  that  may  be  found,  in  practice,  best  to  promote, 
not  profiteering,  but  the  public  interest. 

Immediate   Nationalization 

The  Labour  Party  stands  not  merely  for  the  principle  of  the 
Common  Ownership  of  the  nation's  land,  to  be  applied  as  suitable 
opportunities  occur,  but  also,  specifically,  for  the  immediate  Nation- 
alization of  Railways,  Mines,  and  the  production  of  Electrical 
Power.  We  hold  that  the  very  foundation  of  any  successful  re- 
organization of  British  Industry  must  necessarily  be  found  in  the 
provision  of  the  utmost  facilities  for  transport  and  communication, 
the  production  of  power  at  the  cheapest  possible  rate,  and  the  most 
economical  supply  of  both  electrical  energy  and  coal  to  every  corner 
of  the  kingdom.  Hence  the  Labour  Party  stands,  unhesitatingly, 
for  the  National  Ownership  and  administration  of  the  Railways  and 
Canals,  and  their  union,  along  with  Harbours  and  Roads  and  the 
Posts  and  Telegraphs  —  not  to  say  also  the  great  lines  of  steamers 
which  could  at  once  be  owned,  if  not  immediately  directly  managed 
in  detail,  by  the  Government  —  in  a  united  national  service  of  Com- 

[305] 


munication  and  Transport;  to  be  worked,  unhampered  by  capitalist, 
private  or  purely  local  interests  (and  with  a  steadily  increasing  par- 
ticipation of  the  organized  workers  in  the  management,  both  central 
and  local),  exclusively  for  the  common  good.  If  any  Government 
should  be  so  misguided  as  to  propose,  when  peace  comes,  to  hand  the 
railways  back  to  the  shareholders;  or  should  show  itself  so  spend- 
thrift of  the  nation's  property  as  to  give  these  shareholders  any  en- 
larged franchise  by  presenting  them  with  the  economies  of  unifica' 
tion  or  the  profits  of  increased  railway  rates;  or  so  extravagant 
as  to  bestow  public  funds  on  the  re-equipment  of  privately  owned 
lines  —  all  of  which  things  are  now  being  privately  intrigued  for  by 
the  railway  interests  —  the  Labour  Party  will  offer  any  such  project 
the  most  strenuous  opposition.  The  railways  and  canals,  like  the 
roads,  must  henceforth  belong  to  the  public,  and  to  the  public  alone. 

In  the  production  of  Electricity,  for  cheap  Power,  Light  and 
Heating,  this  country  has  so  far  failed,  because  of  hampering  private 
interests,  to  take  advantage  of  science.  Even  in  the  largest  cities 
we  still  "  peddle "  our  Electricity  on  a  comparatively  small  scale. 
What  is  called  for,  immediately  after  the  war,  is  the  erection  of  a 
score  of  gigantic  "  super-power  stations,"  which  could  generate,  at 
incredibly  cheap  rates,  enough  electricity  for  the  use  of  every  in- 
dustrial establishment  and  every  private  household  in  Great  Britain; 
the  present  municipal  and  joint-stock  electrical  plants  being  uni- 
versally linked  up  and  used  for  local  distribution.  This  is  in- 
evitably the  future  of  Electricity.  It  is  plain  that  so  great  and  so 
powerful  an  enterprise,  affecting  every  industrial  enterprise  and, 
eventually  every  household,  must  not  be  allowed  to  pass  into  the 
hands  of  private  capitalists.  They  are  already  pressing  the  Gov- 
ernment for  the  concession,  and  neither  the  Liberal  nor  the  Con- 
servative Party  has  yet  made  up  its  mind  to  a  refusal  of  such 
a  new  endowment  of  profiteering  in  what  will  presently  be  the 
lifeblood  of  modern  productive  industry.  The  Labour  Party  de- 
mands that  the  production  of  Electricity  on  the  necessary  gigantic 
scale  shall  be  made,  from  the  start  (with  suitable  arrangements  for 
municipal  co-operation  in  local  distribution),  a  national  enterprise, 
to  be  worked  exclusively  with  the  object  of  supplying  the  whole 
kingdom  with  the  cheapest  possible  Power,  Light,  and  Heat. 

But  with  the  Railways  and  the  generation  of  Electricity  in  the 
hands  of  the  public,  it  would  be  criminal  folly  to  leave  to  the 
present  1,500  colliery  companies  the  power  of  "  holding  up "  the 
coal  supply.  These  are  now  all  working  under  public  control,  on 
terms  that  virtually  afford  to  their  shareholders  a  statutory  guar- 
antee of  their  swollen  incomes.  The  Labour  Party  demands  the 
immediate  Nationalization  of  Mines,  the  extraction  of  coal  and  iron 
being  worked  as  a  public  service  (with  a  steadily  increasing  par- 
ticipation in  the  management,  both  central  and  local,  of  the  various 
grades  of  persons  employed)  ;  and  the  whole  business  of  the  retail 
distribution  of  household  coal  being  undertaken,  as  a  local  public 
service,  by  the  elected  Municipal  or  County  Councils.  And  there 
is  no  reason  why  coal  should  fluctuate  in  price  any  more  than  rail- 
way fares,  or  why  the  consumer  should  be  made  to  pay  more  in 
winter  than  in  summer,  or  in  one  town  than  another.     What  the 

[306] 


Labour  Party  would  aim  at  is,  for  household  coal  of  standard  qual- 
ity, a  fixed  and  uniform  price  for  the  whole  kingdom,  payable  by 
rich  and  poor  alike,  as  unalterable  as  the  penny  postage  stamp. 

But  the  sphere  of  immediate  Nationalization  is  not  restricted  to 
these  great  industries.  VVe  shall  never  succeed  in  putting  the  gi- 
gantic system  of  Health  Insurance  on  a  proper  footing,  or  secure  a 
clear  field  for  the  beneficent  work  of  the  Friendly  Societies,  or 
gain  a  free  hand  for  the  necessary  development  of  the  urgently 
called  for  Ministry  of  Health  and  the  Local  Public  Health  Service, 
until  the  nation  expropriates  the  profit-making  Industrial  Insurance 
Companies,  which  now  so  tyrannously  exploit  the  people  with  their 
wasteful  house-to-house  Industrial  Life  Assurance.  Only  by  such 
an  expropriation  of  Life  Assurance  Companies  can  we  secure  the 
universal  provision,  free  from  the  burdensome  toll  of  weekly  pence, 
of  the  indispensable  Funeral  Benefit.  Nor  is  it  in  any  sense  a 
"class"  measure.  Only  by  the  assumption  by  a  State  Department 
of  the  whole  business  of  Life  Assurance  can  the  millions  of  policy 
holders  of  all  classes  be  completely  protected  against  the  possibly 
calamitous  results  of  the  depreciation  of  securities  and  suspension 
of  bonuses  which  the  war  is  causing.  Only  by  this  means  can  the 
great  staflt  of  insurance  agents  find  their  proper  place  as  Civil  Serv- 
ants, with  equitable  conditions  of  employment,  compensation  for  any 
disturbance  and  security  of  tenure,  in  a  nationally  organized  public 
service  for  the  discharge  of  the  steadily  increasing  functions  of  the 
Government  in  Vital   Statistics  and  Social  Insurance. 

In  quite  another  sphere  the  Labour  Party  sees  the  key  to  Temper- 
ance Reform  in  taking  the  entire  manufacture  and  retailing  of  al- 
coholic drink  out  of  the  hands  of  those  who  find  profit  in  promoting 
the  utmost  possible  consumption.  This  is  essentially  a  case  in  which 
the  people,  as  a  whole,  must  assert  its  right  to  full  and  unfettered 
power  for  dealing  with  the  licensing  question  in  accordance  with 
local  opinion.  For  this  purpose,  localities  should  have  conferred 
upon  them  facilities 

(a)  To  prohibit  the  sale  of  liquor  within  their  boundaries; 

(b)  To  reduce  the  number  of  licences  and  regulate  the  conditions 

under  which  they  may  be  held;   and 
(r)   If  a  locality  decides  that  licenses  are  to  be  granted,  to  deter- 
mine whether  such  licenses  shall  be  under  private  or  any 
form  of  public  control. 

Municipalization 

Other  main  industries,  especially  those  now  becoming  monopo- 
lized, should  be  nationalized  as  opportunity  offers.  Moreover,  the 
Labour  Party  holds  that  the  Municipalities  should  not  confine  their 
activities  to  the  necessarily  costly  services  of  Education,  Sanitation 
and  Police ;  nor  yet  rest  content  with  acquiring  control  of  the  local 
Water,  Gas,  Electricity,  and  Tramways;  but  that  every  facility 
should  be  afforded  to  them  to  acquire  (easily,  quickly  and  cheaply) 
all  the  land  they  require,  and  to  extend  their  enterprises  in  Housing 
and  Town  Planning,  Parks,  and  Public  Libraries,  the  provision  of 
music  and  the  organization  of  recreation;   and  also  to  undertake, 

[307] 


besides  the  retailing  of  coal,  other  services  of  common  utility,  par- 
ticularly the  local  supply  of  milk,  wherever  this  is  not  already  fully 
and  satisfactorily  organized  by  a  Co-operative  Society. 

Control  of  Capitalist  Industry 

Meanwhile,  however,  we  ought  not  to  throw  away  the  valuable 
experience  now  gained  by  the  Government  in  its  assumption  of  the 
importation  of  wheat,  wool,  metals,  and  other  commodities,  and  in 
its  control  of  the  shipping,  woollen,  leather,  clothing,  boot  and  shoe, 
milling,  baking,  butchering,  and  other  industries.  The  Labour 
Party  holds  that,  whatever  may  have  been  the  shortcomings  of 
this  Government  importation  and  control,  it  has  demonstrably  pre- 
vented a  lot  of  "  profiteering."  Nor  can  it  end  immediately  on 
the  Declaration  of  Peace.  The  people  will  be  extremely  foolish  if 
they  ever  allow  their  indispensable  industries  to  slip  back  into  the 
unfettered  control  of  private  capitalists,  who  are,  actually  at  the 
instance  of  the  Government  itself,  now  rapidly  combining,  trade  by 
trade,  into  monopolist  Trusts,  which  may  presently  become  as  ruth- 
less in  their  extortion  as  the  worst  American  examples.  Standing 
as  it  does  for  the  Democratic  Control  of  Industry,  the  Labour  Party 
would  think  twice  before  it  sanctioned  any  abandonment  of  the 
present  profitable  centralization  of  purchase  of  raw  materials;  of 
the  present  carefully  organized  "  rationing,"  by  joint  committees  of 
the  trades  concerned,  of  the  several  establishments  with  the  materi- 
als they  require;  of  the  present  elaborate  system  of  "costing"  and 
public  audit  of  manufacturers'  accounts,  so  as  to  stop  the  waste 
heretofore  caused  by  the  mechanical  inefficiency  of  the  more  back- 
ward firms;  of  the  present  salutary  publicity  of  manufacturing 
processes  and  expenses  thereby  ensured ;  and,  on  the  information 
thus  obtained  (in  order  never  again  to  revert  to  the  old-time 
profiteering)  of  the  present  rigid  fixing,  for  standardised  products, 
of  maximum  prices  at  the  factory,  at  the  warehouse  of  the  whole- 
sale trader  and  in  the  retail  shop.  This  opinion  of  the  retail  prices 
of  household  commodities  is  emphatically  the  most  practical  of 
all  political  issues  to  the  woman  elector.  The  male  politicians  have 
too  long  neglected  the  grievances  of  the  small  household,  which  is 
the  prey  of  every  profiteering  combination ;  and  neither  the  Liberal 
nor  the  Conservative  party  promises,  in  this  respect,  any  amendment. 
This,  too,  is  in  no  sense  a  "  class "  measure.  It  is,  so  the  Labour 
Party  holds,  just  as  much  the  function  of  Government,  and  just  as 
necessary  a  part  of  the  Democratic  Regulation  of  Industry,  to  safe- 
guard the  interests  of  the  community  as  a  whole,  and  those  of  all 
grades  and  sections  of  private  consumers,  in  the  matter  of  prices, 
as  it  is,  by  the  Factory  and  Trade  Boards  Acts,  to  protect  the  rights 
of  the  wage-earning  producers  in  the  matter  of  wages,  hours  of 
labour,  and  sanitation. 

A  REVOLUTION  IN  NATIONAL  FINANCE 

In  taxation,  also,  the  interests  of  the  professional  and  house- 
keeping classes  are  at  one  with  those  of  the  manual  workers.    Too 

[308] 


long  has  our  National  Finance  been  regulated,  contrary  to  the  teach- 
ing of  Political  Economy,  according  to  the  wishes  of  the  possessing 
classes  and  the  profits  of  the  financiers.  The  colossal  expenditure 
involved  in  the  present  war  (of  which,  against  the  protest  of  the 
Labour  Party,  only  a  quarter  has  been  raised  by  taxation,  whilst 
three-quarters  have  been  borrowed  at  onerous  rates  of  interest,  to 
be  a  burden  on  the  nation's  future)  brings  things  to  a  crisis.  When 
peace  comes,  capital  will  be  needed  for  all  sorts  of  social  enterprises, 
and  the  resources  of  Government  will  necessarily  have  to  be  vastly 
greater  than  they  were  before  the  war.  Meanwhile  innumerable 
new  private  fortunes  are  being  heaped  up  by  those  who  take  ad- 
vantage of  the  nation's  need;  and  the  one-tenth  of  the  population 
which  owns  nine-tenths  of  the  riches  of  the  United  Kingdom,  far 
from  being  made  poorer,  will  find  itself  in  the  aggregate,  as  a 
result  of  the  war,  drawing  in  rent  and  interest  and  dividends  a 
larger  nominal  income  than  ever  before.  Such  a  position  demands 
a  revolution  in  national  finance.  How  are  we  to  discharge  a  public 
debt  that  may  well  reach  the  almost  incredible  figure  of  7,000  mill- 
ion pounds  sterling,  and  at  the  same  time  raise  an  annual  revenue 
which,  for  local  as  well  as  central  government,  must  probably  reach 
i.ooo  millions  a  year?  It  is  over  this  burden  of  taxation  that  the 
various  political  parties  will  be  found  to  be  most  sharply  divided. 

The  Labour  Party  stands  for  such  a  system  of  taxation  as  will 
yield  all  the  necessary  revenue  to  the  Government  without  en- 
croaching on  the  Prescribed  National  Minimum  Standard  of  Life 
of  any  family  whatsoever;  without  hampering  production  or  dis- 
couraging any  useful  personal  effort,  and  with  the  nearest  possible 
approximation  to  equality  of  sacrifice.  We  definitely  repudiate  all 
proposals  for  a  Protective  Tariff,  in  whatever  specious  guise  they 
may  be  cloaked,  as  a  device  for  burdening  the  consumer  with  un- 
necessarily enhanced  prices,  to  the  profit  of  the  capitalist  employer 
or  landed  proprietor,  who  avowedly  expects  his  profits  or  rent  to  be 
increased  thereby.  We  shall  strenuously  oppose  any  taxation,  of 
whatever  kind,  which  would  increase  the  price  of  food  or  of  any 
other  necessary  of  life.  We  hold  that  indirect  taxation  on  com- 
modities, whether  by  Customs  or  Excise,  should  be  strictly  limited 
luxuries ;  and  concentrated  principally  on  those  of  which  it  is 
socially  desirable  that  the  consumption  should  be  actually  discour- 
aged. We  are  at  one  with  the  manufacturer,  the  farmer  and  the 
trader  in  objecting  to  taxes  interfering  with  production  or  com- 
merce, or  hampering  transport  and  communications.  In  all  these 
matters  —  once  more  in  contrast  with  the  other  political  parties,  and 
by  no  means  in  the  interests  of  the  wage-earners  alone  —  the  Labour 
Party  demands  that  the  very  definite  teachings  of  economic  science 
should  no  longer  be  disregarded. 

For  the  raising  of  the  greater  part  of  the  revenue  now  required 
the  Labour  Party  looks  to  the  direct  taxation  of  the  incomes  above 
the  necessary  cost  of  family  maintenance;  and  for  the  requisite  ef- 
fort to  pay  off  the  National  Debt,  to  the  direct  taxation  of  private 
fortunes  both  during  life  and  at  death.  The  Income  Tax  and  Sup- 
ertax ought  at  once  to  be  thoroughly  reformed  in  assessment  and 
collection,   in   abatements  and   allowances,   and   in   graduation   and 

[309] 


difFerentlation,  so  as  to  levy  the  required  total  sum  in  such  a  way 
as  to  make  the  real  sacnnce  or  ail  tJie  taxpayers  as  nearly  as  pos- 
sible equal.  This  would  involve  assessment  by  families  instead  of 
by  individual  persons,  so  that  the  burden  is  alleviated  in  proportion 
to  the  number  of  persons  to  be  maintained.  It  would  involve  the 
raising  of  the  present  unduly  low  minimum  income  assessable  to  the 
tax,  and  the  lightening  of  the  present  unfair  burden  on  the  great 
mass  of  professional  and  small  trading  classes  by  a  new  scale  of 
graduation,  rising  from  a  penny  in  the  pound  on  the  smallest  assess- 
able income  up  to  sixteen  or  even  nineteen  shillings  in  the  pound  on 
the  highest  income  of  the  millionaires.  It  would  involve  bringing 
into  assessment  the  numerous  windfalls  of  profit  that  now  escape, 
and  a  further  differentiation  between  essentially  different  kinds  of 
income.  The  Excess  Profits  Tax  might  well  be  retained  in  an  ap- 
propriate form;  while  so  long  as  Mining  Royalties  exist  the  Mineral 
Rights  Duty  ought  to  be  increased.  The  steadily  rising  unearned 
Increment  of  urban  and  mineral  land  ought,  by  an  appropriate  direct 
Taxation  of  Land  Values,  to  be  wholly  brought  into  the  Public 
Exchequer.  At  the  same  time,  for  the  service  and  redemption  of 
the  National  Debt,  the  Death  Duties  ought  to  be  regraduated,  much 
more  strictly  collected,  and  greatly  increased.  In  this  matter  we 
need,  in  fact,  completely  to  reverse  our  point  of  view,  and  to  re- 
arrange the  whole  taxation  of  inheritance  from  the  standpoint  of 
asking  what  is  the  maximum  amount  that  any  rich  man  should  be 
permitted  at  death  to  divert,  by  his  will,  from  the  National  Exchequer, 
which  should  normally  be  the  heir  to  all  private  riches  in  excess  of 
a  quite  moderate  amount  by  way  of  family  provision.  But  all  this 
•will  not  suffice.  It  will  be  imperative  at  the  earliest  possible  mo- 
ment to  free  the  nation  from  at  any  rate  the  greater  part  of  its  new 
load  of  interest-bearing  debts  for  loans  which  ought  to  have  been 
levied  as  taxation;  and  the  Labour  Party  stands  for  a  special  Capi- 
tal Levy  to  pay  off,  if  not  the  whole,  a  very  substantial  part  of  the 
entire  National  Debt —  a  Capital  Levy  chargeable  like  the  Death 
Duties  on  all  property,  but  (in  order  to  secure  approximate  equality 
of  sacrifice)  with  exemption  of  the  smallest  savings,  and  for  the  rest 
at  rates  very  steeply  graduated,  so  as  to  take  only  a  small  contribu- 
tion from  the  little  people  and  a  very  much  larger  percentage  from 
the  millionaires. 

Over  this  issue  of  how  the  financial  burden  of  the  war  is  to  be 
borne,  and  how  the  necessary  revenue  is  to  be  raised,  the  greatest 
political  battles  will  be  fought.  In  this  matter  the  Labour  Party 
claims  the  support  of  foor-fifths  of  the  whole  nation,  for  the  interests 
of  the  clerk,  the  teacher,  the  doctor,  the  minister  of  religion,  the 
average  retail  shopkeeper  and  trader,  and  all  the  mass  of  those  living 
on  small  incomes  are  identical  with  those  of  the  artisan.  The  land- 
lords, the  financial  magnates,  the  possessors  of  great  fortunes  will 
not,  as  a  class,  willingly  forego  the  relative  immunity  that  they  have 
hitherto  enjoyed.  The  present  unfair  subjection  of  the  Co-opera- 
tive Society  to  an  Excess  Profits  Tax  on  the  "  profits  "  which  it  has 
never  made  —  specially  dangerous  as  "  the  thin  end  of  the  wedge  " 
of  penal  taxation  of  this  laudable  form  of  Democratic  enterprise  — 
will  not  be  abandoned   without   a   struggle.     Every  possible  effort 

[310] 


will  be  made  to  juggle  with  the  taxes,  so  as  to  place  upon  the 
shoulders  of  the  mass  of  labouring  folk  and  upon  the  struggling 
households  of  the  professional  men  and  small  traders  (as  was  done 
after  every  previous  war)  — whether  by  Customs  or  Excise  Duties, 
by  industrial  monopolies,  by  unnecessarily  high  rates  of  postage  and 
railway  fares,  or  by  a  thousand  and  one  other  ingenious  devices  — 
an  unfair  share  of  the  national  burden.  Against  these  efforts  the 
Labour  Party  will  take  the  firmest  stand. 

THE  SURPLUS  FOR  THE  COMMON  GOOD 

In  the  disposal  of  the  surplus  above  the  Standard  of  Life  society 
has  hitherto  gone  as  far  wrong  as  in  its  neglect  to  secure  the  neces- 
sary basis  of  any  genuine  industrial  efficiency  or  decent  social  order. 
We  have  allowed  the  riches  of  our  mines,  the  rental  value  of  the 
lands  superior  to  the  margin  of  cultivation,  the  extra  profits  of  the 
fortunate  capitalists,  even  the  material  outcome  of  scientific  dis- 
coveries —  which  ought  by  now  to  have  made  this  Britain  of  ours 
immune  from  class  poverty  or  from  any  widespread  destitution  —  to 
be  absorbed  by  individual  proprietors;  and  then  devoted  very  largely 
to  the  senseless  luxury  of  an  idle  rich  class.  Against  this  misappro- 
priation of  the  wealth  of  the  community,  the  Labour  Party  —  speak- 
ing in  the  interests  not  of  the  wage-earners  alone,  but  of  every 
grade  and  section  of  producers  by  hand  or  by  brain,  not  to  mention 
also  those  of  the  generations  that  are  to  succeed  us,  and  of  the 
permanent  welfare  of  the  community  —  emphatically  protests.  One 
main  Pillar  of  the  House  that  the  Labour  Party  intends  to  build  is 
the  future  appropriation  of  the  Surplus,  not  to  the  enlargement  of 
any  individual  fortune,  but  to  the  Common  Good.  It  is  from  this 
constantly  arising  Surplus  (to  be  secured,  on  the  one  hand,  by 
Nationalisation  and  Municipalisation  and,  on  the  other,  by  the 
steeply  graduated  Taxation  of  Private  Income  and  Riches)  that  will 
have  to  be  found  the  new  capital  which  the  community  day  by  day 
needs  for  the  perpetual  improvement  and  increase  of  its  various  en- 
terprises, for  which  we  shall  decline  to  be  dependent  on  the  usury- 
exacting  financiers.  It  is  from  the  same  source  that  has  to  be  de- 
frayed the  public  provision  for  the  Sick  and  Infirm  of  all  kinds 
(including  that  for  Maternity  and  Infantry)  which  is  still  so  scanda- 
lously insufficient;  for  the  Aged  and  those  prematurely  incapacitated 
by  accident  or  disease,  now  in  many  ways  so  imperfectly  cared  for; 
for  the  Education  alike  of  children,  of  adolescents  and  of  adults, 
in  which  the  Labour  Party  demands  a  genuine  equality-  of  oppor- 
tunity, overcoming  all  differences  of  material  circumstances;  and  for 
the  organization  of  public  improvements  of  all  kinds,  including  the 
brightening  of  the  lives  of  those  now  condemned  to  almost  ceaseless 
toil,  and  a  great  development  of  the  means  of  recreation.  From  the 
"ame  source  must  come  the  greatly  increased  public  provision  that 
the  Labour  Party  will  insist  on  being  made  for  scientific  investiga- 
tion and  original  research,  in  every  branch  of  knowledge,  not  to  say 
also  for  the  promotion  of  music,  literature  and  fine  art,  which 
have  been  under  Capitalism  so  greatly  neglected,  and  upon  which, 
so  the  Labour  Party  holds,  any  real  development  of  civilization  fun- 

[311] 


daraentally  depends.  Society,  like  the  individual,  does  not  live  by 
bread  alone  —  does  not  exist  only  for  perpetual  wealth  production. 
It  is  in  the  proposal  for  this  appropriation  of  every  surplus  for  the 
Common  Good  —  in  the  vision  of  its  resolute  use  for  the  building  up 
of  the  community  as  a  whole  instead  of  for  the  magnification  of  in- 
dividual fortunes  —  that  the  Labour  Party,  as  the  Party  of  the  Pro- 
ducers by  hand  or  by  brain,  most  distinctively  marks  itself  off  from 
the  older  political  parties,  standing,  as  these  do  essentially  for  the 
maintenance,  unimpaired  of  the  perpetual  private  mortgage  upon  the 
annual  product  of  the  nation  that  is  involved  in  the  individual  own- 
ership of  land  and  capital. 

THE  STREET  OF  TOMORROW 

The  House  which  the  Labour  Party  intends  to  build,  the  four 
Pillars  of  which  have  now  been  described,  does  not  stand  alone  in 
the  world.  Where  will  it  be  in  the  Street  of  Tomorrow?  If  we 
repudiate,  on  the  one  hand,  the  Imperialism  that  seeks  to  dominate 
other  races,  or  to  impose  our  own  will  on  other  parts  of  the  British 
Empire,  so  we  disclaim  equally  any  conception  of  a  selfish  and  in- 
sular "  non-interventionism  "  unregarding  of  our  special  obligations 
to  our  fellow-citizens  overseas;  of  the  corporate  duties  of  one  nation 
to  another;  of  the  moral  claims  upon  us  of  the  non-adult  races,  and 
of  our  own  indebtedness  to  the  world  of  which  we  are  part.  We 
look  for  an  ever-increasing  intercourse,  a  constantly  developing  ex- 
change of  commodities,  a  steadily  growing  mutual  understanding,  and 
a  continually  expanding  friendly  co-operation  among  all  the  peoples 
of  the  world.  With  regard  to  that  great  Commonwealth  of  all 
races,  all  colours,  all  religions  and  all  degrees  of  civilization,  that 
we  call  the  British  Empire,  the  Labour  Party  stands  for  its  main- 
tenance and  its  progressive  development  on  the  lines  of  Local  Au- 
tonomy and  "  Home  Rule  All  Round  " ;  the  fullest  respect  for  the 
rights  of  each  people,  whatever  its  colour,  to  all  the  Democratic  Self- 
Government  of  which  it  is  capable,  and  to  the  proceeds  of  its  own 
toil  upon  the  resources  of  its  own  territorial  home ;  and  the  closest 
possible  co-operation  among  all  the  various  members  of  what  ha» 
become  essentially  not  an  Empire  in  the  old  sense,  but  a  Britannic 
Alliance.  We  desire  to  maintain  the  most  intimate  relations  with  the 
Labour  Parties  overseas.  Like  them,  we  have  no  sympathy  with 
the  projects  of  "  Imperial  Federation "  in  so  far  as  these  imply 
the  subjection  to  a  common  Imperial  Legislature  wielding  coercive 
power  (including  dangerous  facilities  for  coercive  Imperial  taxation 
and  for  enforced  military  service),  either  of  the  existing  Self-Gov- 
erning  Dominions,  whose  autonomy  would  be  thereby  invaded ;  or 
of  the  United  Kingdom,  whose  freedom  of  Democratic  Self-develop- 
ment would  be  thereby  hampered;  or  of  India  and  the  Colonial  De- 
pendencies, which  would  thereby  run  the  risk  of  being  further  ex- 
ploited for  the  benefit  of  a  "  White  Empire."  We  do  not  intend,  by 
any  such  "  Imperial  Senate,"  either  to  bring  the  plutocracy  of  Can- 
ada and  South  Africa  to  the  aid  of  the  British  aristocracy  or  to  en- 
able the  landlords  and  financiers  of  the  Mother  Country  to  unite  in 
controlling  the  growing  Popular  Democracies  overseas.    The  absolute 

[312] 


autonomy  of  each  self-governing  part  of  the  Empire  must  be  main- 
tained intact.  What  we  look  for,  besides  a  constant  progress  in 
Democratic  Self-Government  of  every  part  of  the  Britannic  Alliance, 
and  especially  in  India,  is  a  continuous  participation  of  the  Minis- 
ters of  the  Dominions  of  India,  and  eventually  of  other  Dependencies 
(perhaps  by  means  of  their  own  Ministers  specially  resident  in  Lon- 
don for  this  purpose)  in  the  most  confidential  deliberations  of  the 
Cabinet,  so  far  as  Foreign  Policy  and  Imperial  Affairs  are  concerned; 
and  the  annual  assembly  of  an  Imperial  Council,  representing  all 
constituents  of  the  Britannic  Alliance  and  all  parties  in  their  Local 
Legislatures,  which  should  discuss  all  matters  of  common  interest, 
but  only  in  order  to  make  recommendations  for  the  simultaneous  con- 
sideration of  the  various  autonomous  local  legislatures  of  what 
should  increasingly  take  the  constitutional  form  of  an  Alliance  of 
Free  Nations.  And  we  carry  the  idea  further.  As  regards  our  re- 
lations to  Foreign  Countries,  we  disavow  and  disclaim  any  desire 
or  intention  to  dispossess  or  to  impoverish  any  other  State  or  Na- 
tion. We  seek  no  increase  of  territory.  We  disclaim  all  idea  of 
"  economic  war."  We  ourselves  object  to  all  Protective  Customs 
Tariffs;  but  we  hold  that  each  nation  must  be  left  free  to  do  what 
it  thinks  best  for  its  own  economic  development,  without  thought  of 
injuring  others.  We  believe  that  nations  are  in  no  way  damaged  by 
each  other's  economic  prosperity  or  commercial  progress;  but,  on  the 
contrary,  that  they  are  actually  themselves  mutually  enriched  thereby. 
We  would  therefore  put  an  end  to  the  old  entanglements  and  mys- 
tifications of  Secret  Diplomacy  and  the  formation  of  Leagues  against 
Leagues.  We  stand  for  the  immediate  establishment,  actually  as  a 
part  of  the  Treaty  of  Peace  with  which  the  present  war  will  end, 
of  a  Universal  League  or  Society  of  Nations,  a  Supernational  Au- 
thority, with  an  International  High  Court  to  try  all  justiciable  issues 
between  nations;  an  International  Legislature  to  enact  such  common 
laws  as  can  be  mutually  agreed  upon,  and  an  Interational  Council  of 
Mediation  to  endeavour  to  settle  without  ultimate  conflict  even  those 
disputes  which  are  not  justiciable.  We  would  have  all  the  nations 
of  the  world  most  solemnly  undertake  and  promise  to  make  a  com- 
mon cause  against  any  one  of  them  that  broke  away  from  this  funda- 
mental agreement.  The  world  has  suffered  too  much  from  war  for 
the  Labour  Party  to  have  any  other  policy  than  that  of  lasting  Peace. 

MORE  LIGHT  — BUT  ALSO  MORE  WARMTH! 

The  Labour  Party  is  far  from  assuming  that  it  possesses  a  key  to 
open  all  locks;  or  that  any  policy  which  it  can  formulate  will  solve 
all  the  problems  that  beset  us.  But  we  deem  it  important  to  our- 
selves as  well  as  to  those  who  may,  on  the  one  hand,  wish  to  join 
the  Party,  or,  on  the  other,  to  take  up  arms  against  it,  to  make  quite 
clear  and  definite  our  aim  and  purpose.  The  Labour  Party  wants 
that  aim  and  purpose,  as  set  forth  in  the  preceding  pages,  with  all 
its  might.  It  calls  for  more  warmth  in  politics,  for  much  less 
apathetic  acquiescence  in  the  miseries  that  exist,  for  none  of  the 
cynicism  that  saps  the  life  of  leisure.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Labour 
Party  has  no  belief  in   any  of  the  problems  of  the  world  being 

[313] 


solved  by  Good  Will  alone.  Good  Will  without  knowledge  is  Warmth 
without  Light.  Especially  in  all  the  complexities  of  politics,  in  the 
still  undeveloped  Science  of  Society,  the  Labour  Party  stands  for  in- 
creased study,  for  the  scientific  investigation  of  each  succeeding  prob- 
lem, for  the  deliberate  organization  of  research,  and  for  a  much  more 
rapid  dissemination  among  the  whole  people  of  all  the  science  that 
exists.  And  it  is  perhaps  specially  the  Labour  Party  that  has  the 
duty  of  placing  this  Advancement  of  science  in  the  forefront  of 
its  political  programme.  What  the  Labour  Party  stands  for  in  all 
fields  of  life  is,  essentially.  Democratic  Co-operation ;  and  Co-opera- 
tion involves  a  common  purpose  which  can  be  agreed  to;  a  common 
plan  which  can  be  explained  and  discussed,  and  such  a  measure  of 
success  in  the  adaptation  of  means  to  ends  as  will  ensure  a  common 
satisfaction.  An  autocratic  Sultan  may  govern  without  science  if  his 
whim  is  law.  A  Plutocratic  Party  may  choose  to  ignore  science,  if  it 
is  heedless  whether  its  pretended  solutions  of  social  problems  that 
may  win  political  triumphs  ultimately  succeed  or  fail.  But  no  La- 
bour Party  can  hope  to  maintain  its  position  unless  its  proposals  are, 
in  fact,  the  outcome  of  the  best  Political  Science  of  its  time ;  or  to 
fulfil  its  purpose  unless  that  science  is  continually  wresting  new  fields 
from  human  ignorance.  Hence,  although  the  purpose  of  the  Labour 
Party  must,  by  the  law  of  its  being,  remain  for  all  time  unchanged, 
its  Policy  and  its  Programme  will,  we  hope,  undergo  a  perpetual 
development,  as  knowledge  grows,  and  as  new  phases  of  the  social 
problem  present  themselves,  in  a  continually  finer  adjustment  of  our 
measures  to  our  ends.  If  Law  is  the  Mother  of  Freedom,  Science, 
to  the  Labour  Party,  must  be  the  Parent  of  Law. 


[314I 


APPENDIX  II 

The  following  is  the  full  text  of  the  tentative  programme  sug- 
gested by  the  party  led  by  Mr.  Lansbury  and  published  in  the  Lon- 
don Herald  some  eighteen  months  previous  to  the  publication  of  the 
Report  on  Reconstruction  of  the  Labour  Party. 

CONSCRIPTION  OF  WEALTH  AND  EQUALITY  OF 
INCOME. 

{a)  Expropriation  of  private  landowners  and  capitalists.  No  com- 
pensation beyond  an  ample  provision  against  individual  hard- 
ship. 

{b)  All  men  and  women  willing  to  work  to  be  paid,  even  when  their 
work  happens  to  be  not  needed,  just  as  soldiers  are  paid  when 
they  are  not  fighting.  Equal  payment  for  all  to  be  the  result  at 
which  reorganization  shall  aim. 

(f)   Instead  of  the  present  capitalistic  methods  of  production 

OWNERSHIP   BY   THE   STATE:   MANAGEMENT  BY   THE   WORKERS. 

This  shall  be  applied  immediately  to  the  case  of  Mines,  Rail- 
ways, Shipping,  Shipbuilding,  and  Engineering,  Electric  Light 
and  Power,  Gas  and  Water. 
(</)  The  National  properties  in  Mines,  Railways,  Shipping,  Land  so 
created  to  be  leased  to  the  Unions  on  conditions  which  will 
ensure  every  member  at  present  money  value  a 

MINIMUM    REAL   INCOME   OF   ONE   POUND   A   DAY. 

ECONOMIC  INDEPENDENCE  OF  ALL  MEN  AND  WOMEN. 

Until  such  time  as  the  whole  industry  of  the  country  can  be  or- 
ganized upon  the  basis  indicated  above,  the  workers  in  industries 
not  embraced  in  the  above  list  —  including  those  whose  work  is  that 
of  the  household  and  the  bringing  up  of  children  —  shall  be  assured 
a  similar  standard  of  life  by  one,  or  a  combination,  of  the  following 
means: 

{a)  A  high  minimum  wage  guaranteed  by  the  State  through  a  levy 
upon  the  profits  of  unexpropriated  capitalists. 

(b)  Continuation  and  increase  of  present  war  allowances  to  the 
women  and  children  of  soldiers'  families. 

(f)  Increase  of  maternity  benefits  and  maintenance  of  children  dur- 
ing school   age. 

(d)  Great  increase  of  old-age  pensions  beginning  at  an  earlier  age 
than  at  present. 

[315] 


(*)  Revision  of  war  and  other  pensions  periodically  in  accordance 

with  the  increased  cost  of  living. 
(/)   Increase   of   soldiers'   pay   to  Australian,   Canadian   and   New 
Zealand  standards. 

Those  classes  who  have  sanctioned  and  approved  the  con- 
scription of  men,  cannot  on  any  moral  ground  object  to  the 
conscription  of  money  —  expropriation  of  property  owners  for 
national  purposes.  Indeed  the  latter  has  justifications  which 
cannot  be  invoked  for  the  former. 

Not  only  must  we  assure  to  all  our  workers  an  income  on 
which  a  reasonable  life  can  be  led:  we  must  also  create  condi- 
tions in  which  work  ceases  to  be  mere  drudgery  under  a  ruling 
class,  whether  of  bureaucrats  or  capitalists.  By  taking  over 
the  management  of  industry  the  workers  will  be  realizing  free- 
dom and  democracy  in  their  daily  labour.  The  nationalization 
of  industry  will  not  subject  the  workers  to  the  discipline  of  a 
bureaucratic  machine,  but  enable  them  through  the  Unions  to 
organize  production  in  the  interest  of  all.  State  ownership  of 
the  means  of  production,  balanced  by  the  control  of  industry 
by  organized  Labour,  offers  the  best,  and  indeed  the  only  guar- 
antee of  individual  freedom  in  an  industrial  society. 

In  the  case  of  the  Post  Office  we  already  have  the  first  half 
of  the  principle  —  ownership  by  the  State  —  and  there  is  now  a 
powerful  movement  towards  the  second  half  —  management  by 
the  workers. 

As  to  the  practicability  of  the  minimum  income  indicated 
above,  the  economic  facts  of  the  war  prove  conclusively  that 
a  minimum  real  income  of  a  pound  a  day,  present  value,  for 
every  worker  is  quite  attainable.  The  country  is  spending 
eight  millions  a  day  on  the  war  alone.  Very  nearly  the  whole 
of  the  wealth  represented  by  that  sum,  together  ivilh  the  wealth 
iiecessary  for  the  support  of  the  civilian  population,  is  created 
by  the  labour  of  not  much  more  than  eight  million  workers. 
In  peace  time  there  are  not  more  than  fifteen  million  avail- 
able workers,  including  men,  women  and  children.  More  than 
half  of  this  number  is  now  withdrawn  for  the  army  or  unpro- 
ductive army  work,  like  munitions.  Making  every  allowance 
for  such  of  the  army  as  do  productive  work,  the  support  of  the 
army  and  the  country  now  falls  upon  half  the  usual  available 
workers,  the  half  which  includes  the  older  people  and  the 
children.  This  calculation  is  not  seriously  affected  by  the 
argument  that  we  are  "  living  on  credit."  It  is  not  true,  in 
the  sense  that  we  are  consuming  wealth  that  we  are  not  now 
creating,  save  to  a  very  tiny  extent.  The  amount  that  America 
sends  to  us  "  on  credit  "  is  about  offset  by  the  amount  that  we 
send  to  our  Allies  "  on  credit."  And  although  the  Government 
may  pay  for  its  purchases  by  money  borrowed  from  the  capital- 
ist, that  is  merely  in  order  to  preserve  the  capitalist  system. 
The  actual  material  —  munitions,  clothing,  etc. —  is  made  by 
the  workers  noiv,  not  taken  by  some  magic  from  past  or  future 
stores.  And  while  it  may  be  true  that  we  are  making  war 
material  instead  of  renewing  necessary  plant,  we  have  official 

[316] 


assurance  that  that  is  so  only  to  a  small  extent.  The  experi- 
ence of  the  war  shows  that,  given  a  large  and  insistent  demand 
—  ensured  during  the  last  three  years  by  the  immense  consump- 
tion of  war  —  the  wealth  necessary  to  satisfy-  it  can  be  produced 
far  more  easily  than  was  generally  supposed.  The  high  con- 
sumption ensured  during  the  last  three  years  by  war,  must 
after  the  war  be  ensured  by  the  high  standard  of  living  of  the 
workers.  Those  now  busy  destroying  good  houses  in  France 
and  Belgium  must  after  the  war  be  kept  busy  destroying  bad 
ones  in  the  slums  and  in  building  better  ones;  and  in  all  the 
work  of  readjustment  and  reconstruction  necessary  to  ensure 
food  and  raw  material,  and  a  continually  increasing  produc- 
tivity in  order  to  meet  the  continually  increasing  consumption 
of  the  workers. 

A  COMPLETE  DEMOCRACY. 

(a)  Abolition  of  the  House  of  Lords.  Substitution  for  it  of  a 
Chamber  based  on  the  representation,  not  of  geographical  areas, 
but  of  occupations,  industrial,  professional  and  domestic.  Labour 
and  professional  bodies  thus  becoming  a  constituent  part  of  the 
countr\'s   government. 

Political  and  industrial  reconstruction  cannot  be  considered 
in  complete  abstraction  from  each  other,  and  it  is  essential  to 
any  plan,  even  of  political  reconstruction,  that  the  workers 
should  have  their  own  industrial  Chamber  —  representative  not 
of  geographical  areas,  like  the  House  of  Commons,  but  of  occu- 
pations, industries  and  professions.  This  body  must  sit,  not  for 
a  few  days  in  every  5'ear,  but  continuously.  It  must  not  merely 
pass  resolutions  and  indicate  policies,  but  have  definite  powers 
of  initiative  and  control.  It  will  represent  the  people  in  their 
capacity  of  producers,  just  as  the  present  House  of  Commons  is 
supposed  to  represent  them,  and  as  a  reformed  House  of  Com- 
mons will  really  represent  them,  in  the  capacitj*  of  consumers. 

{b)  Abolition  of  all  titles  and  State-granted  honours. 

The  traffic  in  titles  has  become  a  financial  and  moral  pre- 
mium upon  reactionarj'  politics,  as  well  as  a  subtle  form  of 
State  bribery. 

(c)  Full  political  rights  for  all  men  and  women.  Payment  of  Elec- 
tion expenses. 

{d)  Democratization  of  Army  and  Navy  (so  long  as  they  exist)  by 
the  effective  representation  of  the  Rank  and  File  in  all  military 
and  naval  administrations  not  dealing  with  strategy-.  Abolition 
of  military  discipline  in  its  present  form  immediately  on  the 
conclusion  of  peace. 

Demobilization  may  last  two  or  three  years  after  the  declara- 
tion of  peace.  During  that  time,  unless  the  law  is  modified, 
men  who  had  enlisted  for  the  duration  of  the  war  may  still  be 
'ubject  to  restrictive  forms  of  discipline  and  to  the  risk  of  being 
'  ;ed  for  strike-breaking,  etc. 
The  Laws  framed  for  the  purpose  of  providing  for  Freedom  of 

Conscieiice  to  be  made  effective. 

[317] 


Freedom  of  Speech  and  Press,    The  Right  to  Strike,  and  to  advo- 
cate strikes. 


THE  OPPORTUNITY  TO  ENJOY  LIFE. 

(fl)  A  freer  Social  Life:     Increase  of  opportunities  for  Recreation, 

Sports,  Clubs.     Better  Public  Houses. 

(^)  A  high  minimum  standard  of  comfort  to  be  set  in  all  housing 
and  similar  schemes. 

(f)  Education,  both  elementary  and  secondary,  to  be  universal.  No 
child  labour,  but  maintenance  of  children  during  school  age; 
small  classes;  inamediate  large  increases  in  salaries  of  teachers. 
We  put  education  under  "enjoyment  of  life"  because  it  is 
clear  that  the  proper  end  of  education  is  the  proper  enjoyment 
of  life.  The  present  outcry  for  better  scientific  and  technical 
training,  for  the  endowment  of  research  in  processes  which  may 
be  adapted  to  commercial  ends,  and  for  similar  so-called  "  edu- 
cational "  developments,  will  miss  the  real  educational  end  if, 
by  centring  exclusively  upon  mechanical  or  industrial  efficiency, 
it  disregards  the  necessity  for  leisure  and  enjoyment.  The 
problem  of  education  is  not  how  to  contribute  to  the  production 
of  greater  material  wealth,  but  how  to  nourish  in  every  indi- 
vidual the  desire  for  a  full  free  life  (since  without  that  desire 
there  is  no  hope  of  social  progress)  and  the  capacity  for  enjoy- 
ing a  full  free  life  (since  without  that  capacity  social  progress 
is  unmeaning).  That  part  of  education  in  this  country  which  is 
known  as  "  higher  "  has,  in  spite  of  its  narrowness,  at  least  one 
good  point:  it  aims  at  being  a  liberal  education  —  an  education 
which  is  an  end  in  itself,  and  not  a  mere  means  to  "  efficiency." 
This  aim  must  be  kept  in  view  by  education  of  all  grades  and 
all  kinds. 


THE  WORKERS  ORGANIZED  AGAINST  WAR. 

{a)   Communications  between  workers  to  be  maintained  in  War  as 
in  Peace. 

{b)   Negotiations  to  be  instituted  at  once  to  end  the  present  war  on 
the  following  basis: 

The  right  of  all  people  to  decide  their  own  destiny. 
No  indemnities,  but  each  belligerent  to  restore  the  damage  he 
has  done,  or  to  compound  such  reparation  by  concessions  to  be 
agreed  by  negotiation. 

Equal  access  by  all  peoples  to  the  trade  and  raw  materials  of 
the  world. 

The  government  of  non-European  races  in  Africa  to  be  re- 
garded as  an  international  trust,  with  no  exclusive  advantages 
to  the  sovereign  state;  such  populations  not  to  be  trained  for 
war  or  subject  to  conscription  or  servile  labour. 
All  secret  treaties,  or  treaties  not  ratified  by  the  people  to  be 
void. 
Disarmament  by  International  Agreement. 

[318] 


If  democracy  is  to  be  a  reality  in  the  future,  the  competition 
for  preponderant  military  power,  which  necessarily  militarizes 
all  the  nations  taking  part  in  it,  must  be  brought  to  an  end. 
But  the  attempt  on  the  part  of  one  nation  to  create  over  vast 
areas  of  the  world  special  reserves  for  its  own  trade  and  in- 
dustry or  to  block  therein  the  access  of  other  nations  to  neces- 
sary raw  materials,  will  be  certain,  sooner  or  later,  to  be 
resisted  by  military  means.  These  conflicts,  though  the  workers 
as  a  whole  never  benefit  from  them,  are  the  main  source  of 
modern  wars.  The  price  of  peace  is  equality  of  economic  op- 
portunity for  all  nations  big  and  little.  If  the  arming  of  the 
black  millions  of  Africa  for  the  purpose  of  fighting  the  white 
man's  quarrels  is  permitted,  a  new  danger  as  well  as  a  new 
horror  will  be  added  to  civilization.  If  a  people  is  not  fit  to 
share  the  privileges  of  the  British  Empire  in  the  shape  of  self- 
government  it  should  not  be  asked  to  share  its  burdens  by  fight- 
ing its  wars.  Forced  fighting,  like  forced  labour,  is  in  such 
case,  whatever  it  may  be  elsewhere,  undisguised  slavery.  The 
only  certain  cure  for  war  is  disarmament.  If  the  nations  are 
not  loaded  they  will  not  explode. 


[319] 


Date 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  l-tBRARV  FACIUTv 

11 II  iiiiiiiinniiiiii 


A     000  631  389     4 


